


Wolf Winter

by DarkAthena (seraphim_grace), seraphim_grace



Series: A/B/O bodice rippers [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alpha Peter Hale, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Chamberlain Peter, Derek in a kilt, Derek is back from the crusades, M/M, Omega Stiles Stilinski, Scottish Romance, a big stupid dog, but nothing bad happens to the characters, claiming sanctuary, it's just a period of history where it happened a lot, nothing bad happens to the dog, period appropriate sexism, what happens when you should hire a doctor for your castle, which i know is historically inaccurate but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-03-04 18:27:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 71,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13370580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/DarkAthena, https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/seraphim_grace
Summary: Stiles is the legitimate omega son of King Deucalion, tricked by his brother Theo into running away he is trapped, ruined and unable to return home he finds himself stuck, captured as a poacher by the infamous Hale clan he claims sanctuary in their small chapel and Peter puts him to work, with Derek just returned from the crusades he needs a new healer and the only option they've got is the boy in the chapel who is pretending to be a beta





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> oh Mihangel is the Olde English variant of Michael but is Stiles - he'll take the name Stiles later, but I should mention that - Mihangel is Stiles

Mihangel was woken by his half-brother, Theodore. He was twisted up in his flock bed, wrapped in several blankets and almost completely covered, Theo had tugged back the curtains around the bed to allow the cold air to brush across the few parts of Stiles that were exposed by the blankets.

  
It was still dark Mihangel's dog, Harli, a hunting mastiff that had been a gift from his father and served as a chaperone as much as a companion, was draped along the bottom of the bed and kept his feet warm. His room was part of the royal suite but it's distance from the great hall and Mihangel's own predisposition to feeling the cold, something that everyone laughed and said proved him an omega, meant that he had built the fire up so it had blazed hotly whilst he fell asleep and then quickly died so the room took on the early winter's chill faster than most. His maid, Matilda, did not share his room, as was proper, because she had gout that kept her up half the night and with the door latched and the mastiff on his knees, assuming they could even gain entry to the family part of the castle, he was considered protected enough. His beta sisters shared a room opposite, which he had shared once before they complained to their father of how he kicked, and his omega sister, the prized beauty Sydney, had since married and left the castle. His brothers, alphas all, shared one of the long halls, but, of them all, only Mihangel slept alone.

  
"Wake up," Theo hissed, of all his brothers Mihangel was closest in age to Theo and they had been long companions in mischief before Mihangel had been sequestered to learn the arts that suited an omega.

 

Deucalion the Great had won his kingdom by the sword and through deft management and the application of his maxim that men would be more wounded if you took their livelihoods than their lives he had spent the last twenty years as an honored monarch, if not one of the more fierce of the North. He had married, for politics, Lady Claudia, daughter of a Saxon Jarl from far off Europe to gain the support of his men in taking the kingdom but although he had treated her with all of the respect due his queen he had not been as loyal in his household, and as such had a slew of bastards, male and female, alpha and omega both, but she had given him a single son, the golden-eyed omega, Mihangel.

Deucalion had accepted all of his children with the same equanimity, allowing those who had value to him legitimacy- unlike many of his fellows - but was baffled by Mihangel's curiosity, his willful nature - exactly like Claudia's own- and his male omega status where the church was mostly convinced that they were God's great errors or the work of the devil to lure good God-fearing men to sin, but the Saxons did not share that belief but they were strange, godless men. Mihangel favored his mother and was given the same high education as his alpha brothers and his omega sister, baffled that he loved books more than anything and had called him publically his expensive oddity, kept out of fondness for his dear departed mother.

His sister, Sydney, was a prized part of the court, married these last two years and already swollen with child but the truth was that Deucalion had other concerns as long as Mihangel was well, out of mischief, and kept track of he was happy for him to do as he should. He had a nurse, Matilda, he had one of Deucalion's own hunting dogs to watch over him - although the dog, Harli, was long since gone to ruin being spoiled by the boy - and he was educated by Brother Finstock, so he was kept out of sight and allowed his freedoms.

Deucalion had, of course, as a good king, made provisions for the boy's future because he was a king's son and as such the promise of his hand in marriage had some value, even if the local lords would not want him, some vassal might earn enough of the king's approval that he would be given the boy and with him the stewardship of Tatton Halle, one of the lands that he had taken from the Saxons, with a fine long hall and access to the river which meant it had fine grazing for sheep even if the land was too stony to truly be arable.

He might have been a good king and considered a fair father but the truth was that Deucalion hadn't seen Mihangel for well over two years, although he did remember that he existed and asked of him when he did.

The member of his court that kept most track of the boy was the king's Sheriff, Noah, who had come with Claudia from her father's lands and had instructed the boy in basic defense and that he might speak his mother's tongue as fluently as his own.

That there were rumours that the boy was Noah's son and his own Deucalion discounted, he had plenty of children, and offered them all the same legality, if he accepted his own bastards why should he not also accept his queen's, and had the boy been an alpha he would have been heir apparent, instead of pitting the two oldest boys, Camden and Jordan, against each other with the crown the prize.

Mihangel might have been one of the most unappealing commodities in Deucalion's court by virtue of being a male omega, but he was a commodity and Deucalion would use him thus, for that was the wisdom of such a good and respected king.

 

Mihangel sat up in his bed and looked at his brother, "Theo?" he asked, still mostly asleep, his wealth of dark hair was in a braid on his pillow, although Theo wore his hair short it was as fair as Deucalion's, and other than their height there was not much to recommend them as brothers, "what is it?" he asked. Harli had raised her head, decided Theo was not a threat and buried her head back into the pillows.

"You have to come with me, Father has gone mad," he said, he sounded urgent and he was dressed for travel, "he is going to marry you to Lord Ennis."  
At that Mihangel came fully awake. Lord Ennis was one of his father's warlords, a brute of a man built like a skinned bear. He was as broad as a tree and just as intelligent. Ennis' last two wives had died and was so large that Mihangel knew if he ever attempted to lie with him he would tear him in two, and he was violent, given to beating both his servants and his wives, but he was loyal to his king - mostly because he was too stupid to consider betraying him. If Mihangel was to be married to him it was a death sentence and Theo knew it as well as he did.

"Camden has a plan," Theo continued, "if we take you to the priory for a while you can claim sanctuary, but we have to get you out of the town," he was gathering up Mihangel's clothes into a bag, a satchel that could be slung across the body. "That way when Father comes for you then you can discuss it with him, you know he won't listen unless you have some leverage." Mihangel struggled into his skirts without Matilda to aid him, pulling them on over his head half laced. Everything Theo was saying made perfect sense, their mutual father was more likely to listen if he thought he would win in conceding the marriage. Mihangel having wrestled himself into the dress sat on the edge of the bed to tug on his boots. "The priory in Carlisle is a few days travel, you have to make it on your own, if both of us are absent it will look far more suspicious." Deucalion had not remained king for more than twenty years by not being suspicious, he might not notice Mihangel being missing for several days, but if Theo was missing at the same time then he might be forced to give up Mihangel's location before everything was ready. "I have a horse waiting," he pushed a bag of coin into the satchel, "find the priory in Carlisle and beg for sanctuary, the prior is a friend of mine and will grant you access."  
Mihangel nodded, "if you leave now you can reach there by late afternoon, there is a horse waiting for you just outside the postern gate," Mihangel pulled on his cloak, a beautiful thing of velvet and brocade that was lined in fur, because the winter promised to be vicious even if it was only early October. "I have put food in the bag and some money, go to the priory, ask for Brother Ninian, tell him I sent you and ask for Sanctuary," Theo gave him a quick embrace, "you must go, quick before Father sends for you."

 

Carlisle was a bustling town, utterly unlike any of his father's lands and Mihangel, with his hood tugged up to cover his long hair and omega pointed ears, was overwhelmed. People strode along the thoroughfares between hawkers selling their wares, and they watched him go with a certain hunger for his wealth questioning perhaps why he only had a dog for protection, but the dog was large, almost as large as the palfrey he was riding and looked mean enough that they did not dare its teeth.

He stopped at a vendor selling meat wrapped in pastry, trading a halfpenny for a pastry and asked for directions to the local priory. "Aint got one," the man said, checking the coin with the pad of his thumb before putting it into his apron, "there's a nunnery, but ain't no priory," he called over to one of the other vendors, "Ulf, you heard of a priory 'ere in Carlisle?"

Ulf, a man who seemed to be more beard than person and was selling small rounds of cheese, "nearest priory round 'ere is about ten days south."

"I'm looking for a Brother Ninian if you could direct me," Mihangel said, perhaps Theo's friend worked at one of the churches or monasteries, not every town had a priory after all, "I'm supposed to meet him here."

"Aint heard of him," the pie vendor said, "Ulf, you know of a Brother Ninian?"

Ulf scratched at his thick beard before he answered, "can't say that I 'ave."

"This is Carlisle," Mihangel thought it best to be sure, if he was in the wrong town it might explain why there was no priory or no Brother Ninian."

"Aye," the pie vendor told him, "that it is."

Mihangel felt the overwhelming urge to cry, "it's getting late," he said finally, "can you recommend me to an inn, someplace clean."

The vendor did, "may God smile on you, your lordship," he added when Mihangel gave him the second half of the penny as a gratuity for the information, and Ulf gave him a small round of his cheese, which vanished into the satchel that he wore across his chest.

 

 

He paid for a stable for his horse and a private room, the bed of which was a small trundle with a straw mattress, with no sheet or blanket, there was no fireplace or any way to heat it other than being over the common room and when Mihangel latched the door behind him, sitting on the floor with his back against the door, he started to cry.

 

He had asked all over Carlisle but no one knew of a priory or a Brother Ninian, he was alone here with nothing but what was in his satchel and the dog in the room with him.

He was such a fool.

He had been unable to follow Theo's simple instructions, he must have misheard and now he was lost. He had ridden out alone without a chaperone into a town outside his Father's control. He was ruined. Not even Ennis would want him now, anything could have happened and no one would believe him that it had not.  
If he returned his father would have no choice but to punish him, and to do so harshly.

Theo had tried to save him and, instead, he was undone. All he had in the world was what was in his satchel and on his back, and Harli, his bosom companion who even now sat on the dirty floor next to him and whined at his distress.

He had no idea what to do, his money, which was a small amount, would not last long, no more than a week, and he cursed the halfpenny he had given the vendor for his kindness, and broke his pastry in half, giving half to Harli.

He needed to think but all he could do was cry.

 

 

He made the decision looking at his reflection in a puddle that he could see through the inn's small window. There was a knife in the satchel, and it was the work of only a few minutes to cut away his hair, as short as if he was a beta. In the satchel Theo had packed a pair of wool pants and a jerkin, not as warm or as fine as Mihangel was used to. He would find a pawn shop and sell his fine wool dress and cloak, he would sell his jewelry and he would set out for the North. He would find a monastery, it didn't matter which one, the first he crossed and offer himself as a brother. They would cast him out if they discovered that he was an omega but it was a goal, and he could hide. It wouldn't matter there that he was ruined because he couldn't go back. He had to outrun his father's men, he had to go north, he had to find somewhere that he could claim sanctuary.

It was a plan, he thought, as a beta, he could move much more freely, and the fine gown and cloak, as well as the jewelry he was wearing, would bring enough coin to allow travel. He could go north with Harli, he could find somewhere safe.

He would have to be circumspect to protect himself from both his father's men and his enemies, either of which might recognize him, but surely the Scots had monasteries where he could find sanctuary. He clutched his mother's ring on the chain around his neck, maybe he would not sell all of his jewelry, but it was a plan and he would be fine.

He would be fine.

If he kept telling himself that he might eventually believe it to be true.

Without his hair his head felt light and like it might fly away leaving his body behind, he would get used to it and he wasn't going to cry as he looked at his reflection, well if he cried there was no one but Harli to see it and she licked away the tears, smothering him with affection.

The world he had known was gone, but at least, he reminded himself that he was not alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Stiles is an idiot, Peter's tired and cold and Harli doesn't care where her next meal comes from

Peter Hale was Lord Chamberlain of the Hale Clan and, in his nephew's convalescence, Lord in all but name of the clan lands and castle Faoilleach, and now he was taking the rare opportunity to travel, returning from an assizes where one of his vassal lords, men who given the opportunity would have seized the entire lands and needed to be kept an eye on.

Lord Morgan, the vassal who watched over the village of crofters, was said to be abusing his crofters and had executed the children of one family in order to force them to work harder by not being distracted. When the application came to Faoilleach Peter decided to hold an Assizes so that it was clear to the common folk that they were taking their plight seriously even if they ruled on the Lord's behalf, which in this case Peter hadn't. The evidence was compelling so he had the old man dragged out into the street and hung, which meant that his child daughter became the vassal knight and so he had to leave one of his most treasured servants behind to manage the lands.

Now he was returning to Faoilleach, tired, dirty, fed up of travel food, he ached from the days on horseback, his tartan felt caked with mud and there were pine needles in his hair. It was getting dark and it was clear they were going to have to camp again, despite that he could imagine he could smell Faoilleach and it's middens which on a hot summers day had a warm funk that you could almost taste but had always reminded Peter of home.

He was close enough to home to miss it with an ache that almost, but not quite, blended into the ache in his thighs which despite his tartan and the blanket under his saddle felt the incipient winter with a numbness that he knew would feel like needles when feeling returned.

Peter had never really cared for travel in winter, but the Assizes had been important. He would be glad when his nephew was more capable of travel and able to manage these things for himself. 

He had not been the same since he returned, alone, from the Holy Land when he had gone with his three brothers and his alpha sister. He had brought with him a man from Syria, who claimed Christianity with the same lack of faith as Peter himself, and had taken the European name Boyd and was loyal to his nephew for something that neither of them spoke of. Neither of them was that talkative at the best of times.

So Peter was returning to a home that he loved, watched over by the shadow of a nephew that he loved, and although he desperately wanted to return he was tired and, he took another sniff of the air, could he smell pine smoke?

"Can you smell that?" he asked.

The guard beside him, a man as tired as he was who had, just an hour before, asked if it was possible that they could ride on until they reached the castle and they would be there by midnight surely, took a deep breath, mucus rattling around in a nose he had broken years before and had set crooked so it sounded like the roar of some great subterranean beast when he inhaled, "is that smoke, lord?" Court manners were not often given to the clansmen, that they called Peter Lord was a miracle and more because they feared him than respected him. Angus was the sort of man who feared baths more than just about anything but Peter was just below that. 

Peter knew where he had gotten that reputation and was not above using it but he considered himself a temperate man. However he was tired, close enough to home to be tired of travelling and far enough away that he would not reach it until tomorrow, he had performed a task he found loathsome which included the inspection of the corpses of children and now there was a poacher on his lands, someone stupid enough to hunt here, on Hale lands.

  
He didn't bother to draw his sword, his men were quick enough to track the fire by the smell of smoke.

 

 

Sitting with his back against one of the spruce trees, burning a pile of pine branches with a large dog across his legs and a small and mud-spattered horse tied to a tree behind him, looking better fed than it's owner, was a boy in a blue jerkin and grey cloak. He had the hood of it tugged up around his face, even though it was not raining, but was leaning over the fire and rubbing his hands.

There were several inconsistencies about the boy, his boots and gloves were fine deer hide and trimmed in grey squirrel fur, but his jerkin and cloak were cheap homespun wool. He wore a leather belt and satchel, but he looked like he had not eaten in days, his skin had that sort of washed out pallor, but the dog at his side, a huge mastiff with a black face, had a coat shiny with health. He had a horse, and a hound but the gloves and boots suggested that he had not stolen those things, but instead, his clothes were cheap because he had sold the finery he had been wearing. Peter made the guess that he was a lordling run away from a monastic life and had found life in the far north much harder than he had anticipated.

However, the fire he had set on the damp loam was dangerous. There was nothing to stop it spreading to the forest so whoever had taught this boy had not bothered with such simple things.

"God's blood, boy," Angus said stomping the fire out, "do you wanna kill us all with your foolishness?"

The boy's hood fell back as he looked up at Angus, his hand on the heavy leather collar that the dog wore, although whether he was protecting the dog from Angus or Angus from the dog Peter couldn't say. The boy was comely with pale skin, dotted with moles like the fingerprints of angels, and a mouth designed for sin, but he had lovely light brown eyes that caught the firelight and he reminded Peter of someone that he had known and that stayed his hand.

There was no evidence that the boy had been poaching, if the dog had taken a rabbit Peter could not blame it but there was nothing over the fire to suggest that he had cooked anything which presented another dilemma. There was a knife in his belt, a utilitarian thing that looked more suited for the dining table than the wild woods of the Hale lands. "You're damn lucky you didn't send the entire forest up in smoke and us with it," Angus continued, and the boy looked for a moment like his lips might part, like there was a rebuke there or perhaps they might wobble in preparation for tears.

"I'm sorry," the boy said, "I didn't know."

"What are you doing on Hale lands, boy?" Peter asked, flanked as he was between two of his men, both larger than him and with enough hair that they resembled the sort of hermit that wandered the hills looking for alms and scaring young highland children. Their parents were scared of Peter.

"I didn't know, I was on my way to a priory and got lost," the boy seemed earnest and it was such a pity it was such an obvious lie.

"You're about a month's travel the wrong way," Dougall muttered, "not even the nuns stay up here, too cold for their thin holy blood," one of the other men laughed. The Hales had never given land over to the church, and the few attempts to seize it had been quickly abandoned for the warmer, richer lands of the south. "So why are you really here, boy?"

The boy leaned into the dog's muzzle, "if you kill me," he said, "can you watch over her? she's a good dog."

Peter made a noise of amused disbelief, "are you going to tell me why I should kill you, if you're a poacher you're a shit one, not even a bow to condemn you and you look like you haven't eaten in at least a week," the boy went to say something, "so why are you really in our lands."

The boy's eyes went wide, "Sanctuary," he blurted out loudly, an answer which seemed to surprise him more than any of the clansmen, "I claim sanctuary."

When Angus went to correct the boy that he would need to be on church lands with a churchman present Peter stopped him with a hand to his chest, "and who are you claiming sanctuary from?" Peter asked him.

"I," he opened his mouth but was cut off with the rumble of his belly, and he went bright red, and then went quiet, "I don't feel too well," he said and it was amazing to watch the colour run from his skin, at first Peter thought that it was his blush fading but it seemed that whatever blood the boy had when it had left his face it left him insensate and he drooped over the dog in a dead faint.

Peter shouldn't have laughed, he knew it was a terribly callous thing to do but he couldn't quite help it.

He told his men to make camp here, the boy had chosen a good clearing, with the tall wide branches of the spruces forming a decent canopy over the soft carpet of their needles. He might be completely useless in building a fire but the spot wasn't bad.

 

Peter didn't bother setting up tents, having a lean to built for his own sleep, with spruce branches laid over it and when the boy came to it was under it, "here," Peter said handing him the sleeve of his spare shirt, "I think you need this more than I do," the boy's hand wobbled when he took the fabric, pressing it to his chest, "don't get up just yet, stuff it in your breeches when you go to pass water, it'll sop up the blood until we get to the castle and get you some proper things."

The boy bit into his full bottom lip, and what were the odds, Peter thought, of finding an omega who had clearly not fled the church, as he had thought, but marriage and was now menstruating which, combined with poor diet and the exertion, was almost certainly the reason for his swoon. "I'm not interested, boy," he said, "and you claimed sanctuary, after all, Lord Peter Hale at your service," he said turning his back, "do you have a name for me?"

The boy was quiet for a long moment before he answered "Stiles." Peter didn't believe him for a moment but he could get it out of him, and whatever it was that the boy had run from, and it had to be bad for an omega to ruin themselves so thoroughly, and the boy was barely worth the effort of feeding now that he was so ruined, there was no telling how long that he had been on the road and how many alphas had had use of his favours. He might as well be wearing a sign saying "rape me" and if he was attacked it would be his fault and even the alpha who was supposed to be in control of his chastity would have no recourse against the attacker. The only things that he had to protect him were the dog, who was currently begging food from Angus so clearly was a terrible chaperone and the assumption that he was a beta.

He was young enough that he could have been Peter's son, who had died in childbed with his mother nearly sixteen years previous. Peter told himself that was why he offered the boy a kindness, that and a moment's thought that he might be a companion to his nephew, sequestered away in his rooms by pain and old sorrows that left him no surcease.   
Peter gave himself a hundred reasons for why he was going to protect the boy, perhaps he even saw himself in him. "You're a beta," Peter said in a way that brooked no argument, "when we get back to the castle you'll have to stay in the old church, it was for the Hospitaller Order of Saint John so there is furniture, but it will need some care. I'll make sure you have a chaperone and guard but it'll be better if you don't advertise your gender, a scared beta is nowhere near as much of a problem. You've claimed sanctuary, so I'm obliged to protect you," he lied, you needed to be in a church in presence of a churchman to claim sanctuary and even then there were rules and laws and all sorts of things, like how they could not cross the church's threshold and such things that meant it was often far more bother than it was worth, but the boy was barely more than a child, marriageable age by a fingersbreadth and scared enough to run this far north, with nothing but a satchel of food that hadn't lasted nearly as long as he thought it would, a dog that was more lap animal than protector and a horse that didn't care if the Rapture came. "I'll get you something to eat, and you can take care of your little problem," he gestured with his hand, "you're a ward of the Hale clan until our lord decides what to do with you."


	3. Chapter 3

Faoilleach was a large castle built on a hill that overlooked the wild lands with it's little dark dots of spruce trees that appeared like a shadow blotting out the winter sky when they emerged from the trees. Peter pronounced it Fullock.

During the ride Peter had made a point of tying Stiles', and he was careful to use that name, mare to the pommel of his own saddle. This was not because he was scared that given the lead that Stiles would bolt, but because he didn't trust the mare to wander away because it seemed to lack any sense, including the basic herd instinct that most horses had.

Stiles seemed to have been gifted with a horse perfect for omegas, in that a snake could rear out of the gorse and explode and the horse wouldn't even blink, and a dog that despite looking big and scary had a temperament not unlike that of warm butter. The dog, happily ambling along beside them when they first set out, had started to whine to the point where Dougall lifted the creature, almost as large as the horse that the highlander was riding on, and put him across the back of his horse - and the dog had let him.

As far as the others knew the boy was a beta, on the run from his parents after escaping a life in the church, and they were happy to think it. It was rare that highland men cared for anything other than their base pleasures, they were witty, enjoying the banter of light mockery, and if a decision was made that someone else was responsible for, ideally someone in a higher rank, they would do what they were told knowing that if blame did come from above then they could simply cite that they were doing what they were told, because arguing was clearly worse.

Peter had been relying on that for mischief since he was old enough to know what mischief was, and the boy sitting on the stupid mare was mischief personified.

He could always claim that he had been overwhelmed by the boy's beauty, for the boy was beautiful. He had a golden tint to his pale skin and high cheekbones, he was still plump with childhood but clearly male, with large, long fingered hands and shoulders as broad as any of Peter's men.

Peter, himself, wasn't even sure why he had decided to take the boy in, it wasn't omega wiles for although Peter recognised him the boy was in such a sorry state that he barely qualified as appealing. He was half starved and what food he had gotten had gone to the dog, and had fainted almost as soon as he had reached them, suggesting it wasn't the first time, but menstruating as he was, the stink of blood was rich around him, and starved it was no wonder he had swooned. A bowl of salt pork stew, which was almost inhaled, complete with pan breads and small beer, had put colour back into his cheeks and highlighted the unusual colour of his eyes.

When Peter thought about it, a thing he did not care to do, for he was not an alpha given to self introspection, he supposed it was the boy's age - if Peter's own son, an omega also, had lived they would have been of an age.

He would, however, claim that it was on a whim.

That was also assuming that Derek would even ask.

It was possible that the boy could grow to manhood, grow old and die and Derek not even notice that he had been taken in. Since his return from the Holy Land Derek hadn't really paid attention to much. He stayed in his chambers, checked his ledgers and slept most of the day away.

Peter had considered, briefly the night before, that he might introduce Derek to the boy, telling him he had agreed that Derek and Stiles marry, it would make little difference to Stiles for Derek was so deep in his melancholia that he would not bed the boy, offering him the protection of the Hale Clan without any of the suffering that a mari might in an unwanted marriage.

Now Faoilleach was like a manifestation of Derek's own dark moods, a large granite castle with the stone stained black by the harsh Highland weather, the moors had a light heather coloured mist despite the black branches of the gorse with their bright yellow flowers.

To an unknowing observer the plains looked empty of life, but any child of the highlands knew how rich they were, and how the dark castle was a place of warmth and safety despite it's bleak exterior. He could not see the Kynsloch from here, the place where the clan gained most of it's comfortable wealth.

Faoilleach was a motte and bailey castle built upon a rocky outcrop that had, in the years since it's creation, spread with small houses, made of the same dark stone and wood, plastered by mud, some clad in wood, all with the same bracken and gorse roof and from those roofs came thin trails of smoke like roving against the sky.

Peter could imagine how it looked to the boy, but to Peter it was home.

He took the boy through the hubbub of the courtyard to the kitchens. The mud lined courtyard had been strewn with straw and was full of the detritus of the muck of the gathered animals, pigs and sheep and chickens that danced under the hooves of the horses, held in place so that they could climb down,. Every house had a boot scraper because of the mud and shit that covered the courtyard. The maids and wives of the clan, had their skirts tugged up around their ankles to keep their hems from the muds, they had knit capes around their shoulders, despite it being early in the winter, and thick knitted cuffs on their dresses. The alphas postured more, denying that they felt the cold. The boy made no secret of being cold, huddled under his cloak despite riding through the morning.

He had gone to the steamy heat of the kitchen with a sigh of satisfaction that was almost orgasmic. Peter, whose hands were stiff and barely able to hold the reins moments before, might have shared the sentiment but he didn't advertise it.

"Mistress Rachel," he said to the head cook, a woman who had maintained the same slim figure through youth, motherhood and into old age where she had started to hunch over and resemble a shepherd's crook with her hair tied back harshly and oiled into a knot under a piece of linen. Years in the kitchen had prematurely aged her but time had caught up and she ruled the kitchens like a despot. Secretly the alphas of the keep called her Rachel the Dragon, but never in her hearing for she was not so old or so hunched over that she could not box their ears. "This is Stiles," he said, "he is a guest of the clan, he will be staying in the chapel, make sure he has a good feed, and that Erica," Rachel made a noise, "watches over him."

"In the chapel, Lord," she said lord in such a manner that it sounded like an insult, "not the cells?" She flicked her eyes to the boy who was the very image of bliss, stood with his cloak tugged up, his ass stuck out and his hands beside them in front of the bread ovens and their heat.

"Yes," he answered, "and have some hot wine brought to my rooms, I am certain that my duties have piled up without me to keep them to a manageable level." And snagging a sweet bun on his way past he left Stiles to return to his own demesne and the inevitable deluge that awaited him.

 

Mistress Rachel fed Stiles a large bowl of porridge and a piece of salt cod, boiled soft. It was the sort of food that was made early in the morning and kept for those who wanted fed between meals, and a flagon of hot wine to take the chill from his fingertips.

"I don't know what man is thinking," Rachel said as she fussed over him, in the same careful air of affected neglect she gave all of her scullions and the three spit dogs, an old soup bone was given to Harli who decided that she adored the old woman on principle and if she saw her again would almost certainly send her flying with her exuberance, "you give a man a pair of pointed ears and he becomes stupid with it," the low points of Stiles' own ears were covered by his rough cut hair so she had no idea that he was not a beta, "thinking he knows what is best when he doesn't have an idea in his fool head," there was a pause, "Erica," she continued as if Stiles knew why that was a problem, which he did not, but he was too busy enjoying the food, which was nothing special certainly but was well flavoured with hunger for Peter had fed him the night before and they had had some oatcakes with bacon this morning when they had broken camp, he was a growing boy and had gone hungry for days before.

The castle kitchens were a hive of small rooms with large fires and stone surfaces, tables had been placed here and there for the small army of women, for they were beta women all, to maintain the task of feeding the clan who lived in the castle proper. There were huge grain arcs, barrels of fish, meat and other things, even casks of wine. Sacks of dry good were stacked on small pallets, ideally out of the reach of the rats, and a few cats looked down on the proceedings like emperors, and it was Rachel's domain, no matter what the alphas of the castle believed. Without the kitchens the clan would quickly come to a stop.

Once he was fed and warmed through a middle aged beta woman, rotund and built with what seemed more like muscle than fat, led him to the chapel, carrying a portable brazier in her arms with instruction that he and his dog were to open and close the doors in her way. She repeated the admonition that she did not know what Peter was thinking but something in the way she said it gave it a timbre that Rachel's had not. Rachel seemed to think it was a stupid idea because it was something that she would not have done, but this woman, she had given her name as Margaret and only her husband was allowed ot call her Maggie thank you very much, seemed to know things that Rachel did not.

She led Stiles down through the castle, down several flights of stairs, with ropes fixed to the walls to provide handrails and a few arrow slits that looked out over the Kynsloch and the moors letting in slices of light, but there were smoky torches making sure that the footfalls were, for the most part, well lit to prevent falls. Margaret went down the spiral without a question even holding a large brazier - which had been Rachel's explicit instruction - for the chapel.

She then had him push open a heavy oak door to a lower courtyard which was as high with muck if nowhere near as busy as the larger one which served the clan, and to a small building which was set into the wall.

That was the chapel of the Hale Clan.

It was not derelict, because it was part of the wall, but it was not in good keeping, set apart from the lion's share of the castle, and what could be seen from the body of the castle and the wall was well kept, so the roof was solid, but the door had at some point warped and with changes in the weather it had ripped the hinge from the oak door which had split wide enough that Margaret could fit her hand, which was red and knuckled like a side of beef and as delicate, inside one of the splits to lift the latch.

She was not the first to have done so, at some point someone had used the chapel, which had fine oak furniture stood on it's side against the walls, as a pen for some animals, possibly goats judging from the stench and although there were places that the fine stone floor were visible they were glimpses through the dry mud and goat shit. There was rotten vegetables and straw there too so when she opened the door the funk spread out like the middens on a hot day. "There you'll be," she said putting down the brazier by the door, "the chapel." And saying that she prepared to leave.

At some point the main body of the chapel had served as an infirmary, so there were wooden beds, slatted, that lined the walls, placed on their sides and moved out of the way for the most part, although one of them had been broken and lay in parts in the middle of the floor. There was a stone font, but it had been left empty and was covered in moss, and the only things of value, a crucifix hanging on the back wall and a statue of the virgin omega were covered in old blankets, the edges of which had been chewed. If there had been chairs they were long gone, sequestered into people's houses - possibly without the lord's knowledge, and the reed screens which had separated where the altar would have been - that was gone too, the beds probably remained because they were too big to fit through the spiral stair to the castle, or sneak through the main corridor, had been chewed on by the rampaging farm animals.

Margaret looked at him as if waiting for him to say something, to demand that she clean the chapel, that she do more than Rachel had explicitly told her to so she could have the pleasure of refusing him.

For a long moment Stiles felt defeated but then he took a deep breath, with his face turned away from the stench, "I'll be needing a broom," he told her, "and a pot so I can boil water for cleaning," he imitated his father's mistresses, the way that they had commanded when talking to the servants, "you can send them down with Erica."

He would not let this woman see him falter, Peter might have been kind, Rachel might have been kind, under her bluster, but this Margaret had no kindness in her and he would not let her see him break.

Even when she was gone, with a displeased huff, he did not allow himself the luxury of tears, he could make this work, it would take time and effort but he could make it work.

He even made a start with the bits of the broken bed, putting the smaller pieces in the brazier with the drier twigs and things in the muck, with his gloves stuffed in his satchel out of the way so they would not be ruined, he started a fire so he would at least have a place to be warm whilst he worked.

 


	4. Chapter 4

One of the few times of the day that Derek showed any life was in the morning so Peter made a point of sharing a breakfast with him so they could discuss the running of the castle. Peter did his best to take most of the burden from Derek but he did keep him abreast of what he was doing.

Peter had heard that Derek often wandered the castle at night, he never tried any door that was closed, just wandered the walls and sometimes stood watching the waters of the Kynsloch or the men gathering the weeds from the shallows, dragging them on to the beach to dry in the halflight of very early dawn. Boyd, who was Derek's man and who had returned with him from the Holy Land and spoke with a heavy accent, always made sure Derek was appropriately dressed for the weather on these nightly jaunts, making sure the guards kept an eye out for him, in case of accident, but let him as it seemed to bring him peace.

With Derek's melancholia, any thing that got him from his rooms was considered a benefit.

"I went down past the chapel last night," Derek said, he was stood at the window that had been his mother's pride and joy, with small discs of glass fitted together with strips of lead that looked out over the Kynsloch and allowed the room to be full of light, with the glass as thick as it was, warped and bubbled, it was hard to see the actual landscape, the window was no more than two foot in height and one across, set in thick oak and covered with a thick curtain to keep the worst of the draughts out when the wind caused it to rattle in its frame.

Outside the wind was slow and laggardly but there was a piercing cold rain that felt like needles on the skin.

"My little refugee," Peter said, he had been so busy that he was sure that Stiles would be fine on his own.

"I never thought you were cruel," Derek said in his quiet way. Peter blinked, then he blinked again. "I saw the light of his fire through the door," Peter blinked again as he tried to catch up with what Derek was telling him, "I went in to see what was happening. He had made a nest of the mess, used the screens as a lean-to with others to keep him from the floor, I had not realized it had gotten so bad. He looked so cold," Derek continued, "shivering in his sleep, and wearing his gloves, even with the fire still lit."

"Pardon," Peter said, his brain was still trying to process.

"The chapel," Derek said, "I wouldn't make the new brother stay there, the door to the private quarters was still boarded up, and it looks like someone was stabling their goats there. He didn't wake up, I just put more wood into his brazier, he was curled up around his dog, she watched me but," Derek sighed. "You should get Arbroath to fix the door at least."

"Pretend I'm stupid," Peter said, "tell me about the chapel."

It was Boyd who answered, "it's a shit hole," he said, "the door's broken from its hinges, half the stuff that could go missing has gone missing and I don't think it's seen a broom these five years past." He had been sat in the corner, busy at his own tasks, things that he did to make Derek's life easier. The two shared a bond that Peter didn't question. He was a tall broad man with dark skin and a full mouth, he kept his hair shaven close to his scalp and was wearing a blue quilted jacket, eschewing the kilts that the clansmen preferred. Derek had once joked that Boyd felt the cold like an omega.

Peter excused himself with a promise to return which Derek didn't seem to notice, and grabbing a cloak against the morning's rain, tugging it around his shoulders as he went down the wall staircase to the lower courtyard and the chapel. He had, the previous afternoon, left it to Rachel to make sure the boy was set up, but she was old and busy and probably hadn't been to the chapel herself in some time either, her old knees couldn't take the stairs she had told him, so she would have passed it on to the others.

The chapel was worse than he had imagined. Although the boy was awake he had gathered some of the willow branches that had made one of the altar screens into a makeshift besom and was trying, unsuccessfully, to sweep the stone floor, but the rain had softened the earth outside and was pushing it into the chapel, and it was clearly a labour of Hercules. He had, like Derek said, made himself a little nest of the broken screens, some of them laid flat on the floor to lift him from the cold stone, and one laid over it, with a piece of hessian cloth, possibly from over one of the statuary for Peter remembered that his sister had covered them when her children had left for the Holy Land tricked by a passing priests tales of glory and treasure, forming a sort of roof.

The beds, which had been Talia's pride, were set on their sides against the wall like a lean-to, and there were rats and mice clearly making themselves at home in the ordure. Someone had taken the opportunity to stable his livestock there for at least a night, but probably longer, knowing that the door was broken and no one cared. At some point, judging by the muck against the wall, the rain had pooled outside the door in the mud and swept down pushing against the door which had ripped from its hinge and caused the wood to further warp.

He had thought that the chapel was clean, well attended and out of the way, a perfect place to stash the boy and give himself time to think, but he would have been better stuffing him into the stables under Sam-wise and letting him put the boy to work.

Underneath the chapel were the old doctor's quarters, with a wide large fireplace suitable for making both food and the potions that he had prescribed. It had a private well and garderobe that opened directly unto the middens so the apartment had been one of the most sought out, it even had windows that looked out over the middens but let in natural light.

"You," Peter said in a tone that he fully expected to be obeyed, Stiles, who had been trying to clear a corner of the chapel and hadn't noticed him appear, "come with me," Stiles clutched the broom for a moment like it offered him answers that he did not otherwise have, then he steeled himself, wiped his dirty hands on his cloak, he wore the wool jerkin from the night before, the dark brown fabric of his hose were still stained with muck and blood but it didn't look like it had gotten any worse. He simply hadn't had the time or capacity to wash his clothes.

Peter had a face like thunder and he was practically vibrating with rage but it wasn't Stiles he was angry at, and he was trying hard not to explode on the boy because Stiles had done nothing wrong, in fact he had tried to fix the problem, but if Derek hadn't come this way on his nightly perambulations Stiles would have remained there.

"Have you eaten?" he asked.

The boy stumbled over an answer whilst his dog, Harli, who liked Peter to the point that her entire body almost went into a paroxysm of glee that he was there, looking back at Stiles as if to say, look look, do you see, he's there. "I was going to go up to the kitchens," he said. Peter didn't believe him for an instant.

"This is unacceptable," Peter said, "come on." He didn't pay any attention to the brazier, which had the warm embers of the previous night's fire, and there was clearly no guard watching over him as he had specifically said that there was going to be. Stiles had spent the night in the open chapel where anyone could have hurt him, even if it hadn't been so, and Peter was rightfully furious.

Stiles, with no idea what it was that he had done, and protesting that it was probably Harli had that done it, and he would do his best to make amends but she'd been with him all morning, and she had slept beside him, so Harli couldn't have done it but if she had done it he would try to fix it. Peter led him into the kitchen and told him to sit on the small three-legged stool reserved for the scullery boys so that they could baste the meat on the spit in front of the fire, although at the moment, this early in the day, there was nothing there yet.

He sat there waiting for Peter to return with whatever punishment he had earned for whatever it was that he had done and watched as Peter harangued with Rachel, who came only to his sternum and was waving her finger back and forth at him as he leaned down and the few words that Stiles heard were "not so tall that I can't still box your ears" and Peter replying "your responsibility," "chapel" and Rachel hissing "lying wee _hoors_ " which was a word that Stiles didn't know.

Then, almost forgetting that he was there, Rachel went one way into the kitchen and Peter went another and the door closed and there was more shouting, for a good few minutes, perhaps as many as fifteen, during which Stiles waited, not sure what was going on and rubbing behind Harli's ears which she really enjoyed and always calmed him.

There was a pan bread sitting on the counter, freshly baked and he was considering stealing it whilst they were busy because he might as well be punished for something that he had done, well, something that he knew that he had done. He was about to sneak up to snatch it when the door opened and two of the kitchen girls ran out weeping and Peter followed them at a pace. Rachel came behind him, following Margaret who was red-faced with anger and left the kitchen without a word, and pulled a pan down from a hook, "do you eat bacon, lad?" she asked, and her tone was so sweet if he hadn't seen it moments before he wouldn't have known how angry she was.

"I'm not in trouble?" he asked as Peter slammed the kitchen door behind him.

"You've not done anything wrong," she said and her tone shifted as she put a slab of bacon into the pan, letting it sizzle, "I've been sending people down those stairs to take care of that chapel for years, lazy witches all of them, and that Margaret, I'll not have her in my kitchen again."

She cracked an egg into the pan. "We've done you wrong, lad, and we're sorry for it, those skiving _hoors_ " she used the insult again, Stiles didn't want to ask what it meant, "taking the time from their chores to flirt with the clansmen, I thought they were just having a wink or a smile as they passed on the stairs, maybe waving as they saw them on the wall, but the useless" she had run out of insults and so she paused.

"I have no idea what is happening," Stiles said, with the bacon and eggs frying in the pan, she took the pan-bread that Stiles had considered stealing and cut it in two, so it formed two slices and put it into the pan to soak up the hot fat from the bacon. Then slid the whole thing onto the plate, Stiles took it and the spoon that she offered him.

"Lord Peter thought the chapel would be fine for you," Rachel said, wiping her hands down on her apron, "and I, like a lass fresh out on the heather, believed that my girls were keeping that chapel clean and that Miss Erica, who is due a lashing for not doing her duty, was meant to be with you. We've treated prisoners better than you, lad, and even Lord Derek is furious at what happened. Those witches will be lucky if they're not set out of the castle, if it wasn't for my knees I could have checked their work, but I shouldn't have to," she continued and poured him out a flagon of small beer, "you'll be staying in the castle proper, tonight, lad, I can't believe," she added, "it'll be a long day before those lasses can sit comfortably again," she added.

"I'm not in trouble?" Stiles asked.

"No, lad, we're getting Arbroath to fix the door and unlock the rooms underneath for you," she sat down on one of the other stools, rubbing at her knee through the fabric of her skirt.

"Arbroath?" Stiles asked around a mouthful of bacon.

"He's one of the Samuel's, we had a doctor called Samuel pass through and all the lasses called their wee bairns Samuel after him so we have Samwise, he's the oldest by two months, so he gets the dubious honour of being the venerable one people ask about things, Samwell, Big Sam, Wee Sam, Very Wee Sam and Arbroath because that's where his mother's from," she started talking, "the best carpenter in the castle, then get those lazy wretches to clean that chapel out until you can eat off that floor but you'll be wanting a bath and some clean clothes, I'll be thinking, you get that food into you and we'll find you a warm fire to sit at, sleeping in that chapel, God's wounds," that was the first time in her harangue that she had cursed, "sleeping in that chapel, it's a wonder you haven't died of cold, if it wasn't for Lord Derek telling us that you'd still be in there, and Miss Erica is going to get an earful, of course, she'll say no one told her she was to be looking after you, though I don't know why a lad such as yourself needs guarding, and she wouldn't help you to hand you a broom, but she's a fine hand with a bow and Lord Derek thinks well of her, not as well as she thinks of herself," she continued on but warm, and well fed with Harli at his feet with a cow's hoof, taken from a jar on one of the shelves, he felt warm and safe and secure and exhausted, so he let her continue on and just listened without working out what the words actually were.


	5. Chapter 5

After Stiles enjoyed his hearty meal, with Rachel kneading bread next to him still angrily muttering as she did so lifting her gaze to make sure he was still eating, she, after putting her dough into a cupboard next to the fire where it could prove, and wiping her hands on her apron before tugging a cape over her shoulders, took Stiles herself to the house of Mistress McCall.

Faoilleach was a castle built on a spar of granite against the loch, at the top was the castle proper, then on a lower shelf of the spar was the chapel and a few other buildings, mostly used for storage, reached by a few staircases here and threre throughout the castle and courtyard, then there was the sweeping stretch of the castle's village within the walls, outside the walls beyond the ditch and over the stone bridge, made with the same hard black stone was the castle itself, were a few wooden houses and hovels.

Mistress McCall lived in one of the stone houses along the path that curved down to the bridge. It was one of the larger ones, with wide windows with wooden mullions, although she had no glass, there was both curtains and hinged shutters talking of her importance and wealth within the clan. Her house was built into rooms, instead of the usual longhouse that the rest of the houses were, so there was a tucked away bedroom, but most of the house was given to the fireplace and a workspace.

According to Rachel Mistress McCall was the local midwife and almost every daughter in the clan used her as their doctor but the men and alphas never darkened her door being unwilling to be treated by a woman. It was, again according to Rachel, their own stupid pride that got in the way and if they were stupid enough to not treat something and they up and died it was no one's fault but their own.

Rachel, Stiles had quickly learned, had opinions. She had opinions on everything and that included Peter's adoption of him, as she believed it to be, and even Harli, loping along beside them "big as a donkey" to quote Rachel. The fact that Rachel was so small she could possibly have climbed on the dog's back and ridden her down the hill to the midwife's house was irrelevant.

On entering and quick introductions, for Mistress McCall was busy at some task at one of the two trivets she had hung over the fire, one made with copper and the other iron and both with several pots boiling on them with her assistant, a girl introduced as Heather, at a polished piece of stone cutting herbs from those that hung in the rafters in bushes, Harli pushed her way into the house and lay down in front of the fire for she had never found a fire she had not immediately desired to pledge her troth too and Mistress McCall just sighed and muttered a curse about Peter Hale under her breath.

Mistress McCall, as Rachel insisted that she be called, blamed Peter Hale for most of the things that devilled her.

As soon as the pots were at a place that Mistress McCall felt comfortable leaving them to their own devices, with more than one swung out away from the heat, and another placed on another piece of stone, this one by the fire instead of under the window, to cool.

"This is Stiles," Rachel said with her usual lack of aplomb. "Lord Peter has adopted him, put him in the old doctor's quarters, but," and with that opening went into a long rant about the state of the chapel, which was of course much worse than it was, Rachel, herself had not seen it and so as bad it was in reality she had made it much worse including a leaking roof - the roof had been as far as Stiles knew in good condition with actual slate tiles, and several goats in residence which would have been warmer than it had actually been.

Mistress McCall was suitably horrified, giving the old woman a cup of willow bark tea for her knees, for God knew Rachel couldn't manage stairs and that the walk in the winter air had made them ache something fierce, and a rub made with hog fat that would ease the pain in a stone jar that Rachel tucked into the pocket of her skirts.

Stiles was learning that Rachel had no time for him, and she was having conversations around him and that this was what passed for maternal devotion to her. Rachel felt that she owed him because she had been responsible for the people who hadn't kept the chapel clean, so it was her fault that he had spent the night in the chapel, where Stiles had thought it was what Peter intended because then he could use him to clean and keep the chapel which allowed him to fell two birds with one stone. This had not been Peter's intent and whatever use he had for Stiles, because Stiles didn't doubt for a moment that Peter hadn't immediately taken his measure and worked out a life plan for him, but cleaning the chapel had not been the plan, so Peter had given his care to Rachel, who felt guilt over it, knowing her pride would not allow for anything other than better care than he had recieved in his father's castle as a prized omega.

At some sort of pre-arranged signal Mistress McCall sent Heather out with a basket of jars that she was to deliver to the ladies of the castle. With just the three of them both of the women, properly attired in kirtles with veils over their hair, with Mistress McCall's pinned up decorously under her chin, and both of them with work stained aprons and sat on a pair of stools drinking tea turned their gaze on Stiles and Stiles, stood by the fire where Rachel had put him, felt very much like a prey animal.

"So," Rachel said, "this is Stiles, he's an omega," Rachel said, "and he doesn't have the necessaries," and that was as crude as Rachel was going to get in the treatment of menstruation, it was an improvement on his old nurse Matilda who had called it Eve's punishment in a whisper like it was a furtive secret.

"Lord Peter said that no one was to know," Stiles protested.

Both women cut him off with a glare that had the power to overrule Peter even if he was an alpha and lord. Stiles believed that sending Heather away had been to keep the secret, and then, leaving Stiles in Mistress McCall's care until the mysterious Erica came to fetch him Rachel, taking a cane from the door at Mistress McCall's insistence for the climb, returned to the kitchens.

Mistress McCall, moving Harli with her foot like she was a rucked up rug on the floor, and Harli moving without too much complaint, just a sort of subvocal whine at leaving the new love of her life, then proceeded to have Stiles strip to his skin and investigate him to make sure that he was in the good health that he claimed, and then dumped him into a wooden washtub with a handful of herbs and rock salt.

The bath did feel heavenly on his tired, cold bones, but then she brought out a scrubbing brush that looked like it was better used on a floor and washed him. He was given fresh clothes, from her son's wardrobe and he wouldn't be needing them, she said and there was a little bitterness there but Stiles, chattering away as he did, didn't press. If she didn't want to talk about it he wasn't going to ask when she had a scrubbing brush that felt like it was washing his very soul.

For his necessaries she gave him a packet of moss, pushed into the leather straps that tied around his waist with the instruction to rinse it, squeeze all of the water out and just put it back in there when it needed emptying. Stiles had heard of the moss before but he had always had strips of linen that were boiled clean between uses before because that was what was godly and what Matilda insisted on. Then there was a small sack of dried wheatgerm which could be heated by the fire for his stomach, because she knew the cramps could be terrible. And when she had him dressed in her son's jerkin and pants, with another set of clothes in his satchel, which he wasn't letting out of his sight like it contained great riches, she brushed her hands through his wet hair and let him sit by the fire with more food.

The women who had taken over his care from Peter might not have been the sort of women that were considered kindly but they were determined to feed him. She gave him a cup of nettle tea, hard cheese and bread and made sure he ate everything. Then when Erica finally did make an appearance sent them back to the castle.

Erica was not kind. She was a huntress who had proven her worth to the lords of the castle as a huntress and so, with no male relatives to protest, had taken over her own protection to the point where she was considered a female alpha by the men of the castle despite her beta status. She wore leather pants and jerkin, laced tight around her frame, with a yew shortbow hung over her shoulder and a quiver on her hip. She had a short half cape over one shoulder and her blonde hair was gathered in a tail where loose strands had been pinned up into braids so that she resembled a horse more than a woman. Erica was a woman in charge of her own sexuality and her own destiny and she immediately resented Stiles for getting in the way of that.

"I keep the castle in rabbits and pheasant," she said, "out all day and night in the woods and only come back when I've got a full sack, and they let me sell the furs independent, and now I am told to watch over a boy who I don't think that could take a walk in the woods never mind hunt." She had a quick stride, forcing both Harli and Stiles to almost run to keep up with her.

Erica had opinions, and those opinions were that Peter had no idea what he was doing, why he was adopting in bastards from all over, if he had a son why he couldn't claim it and that she was offended that Stiles didn't seem to find her attractive - the reason for that being that he was pretty scared of her, and marched him to a small well appointed bedroom, dominated by a large canopied bed, complete with curtains, and a fireplace with a rug in front of it which Harli immediately claimed as her own.

Then, to make matters worse, she pointed out the garderobe, which was a small door in the wall that led to the tube that emptied out into the middens, with a pair of planks over it for sitting, and the chest where he could put his clothes before going to the door, informing him she would be back in the morning when she was done hunting and he wasn't to go anywhere latching the door behind her.

"What the fuck," Stiles asked, "what the actual fuck?"

Harli, as was usually the case, did not have an answer, but when Stiles sat on the bed she jumped up next to him, twisting and writhing until she was comfortable with her head on his lap so that he laughed at her. He knew that no matter how bad things were he had Harli and that was for the best.

\---

When Harli barked it was a deep boof sound that made her seem much larger, Theo had always called her a little thunderdrum but Stiles didn't want to entertain thoughts of Theo, thinking it was Erica returned, after all she was meant to be his guard, Stiles got up to open the door, Harli at his side making large boofing noises with the hairs on her spine stood upright.

Stiles opened the door about to give Erica a piece of his opinion to find a clansman he didn't know, one of the large bearded men who wore kilts and walked around the castle with their stockings and garters on display, "Lord Peter wants to invite you to supper," he said, he had taken off his cap and was holding it in his hands in a facsimile of manners, "where's Erica?"

And that was enough of an invitation for Stiles to finally unleash about all of the things that had plagued him since he had come into the company of the Hales, waving his arms around as if he couldn't talk with them still and the clansman just blinked and waited until he's finished when he asked, "You coming to eat or not?"


	6. Chapter 6

Stiles was led to the Great Hall of the castle by the Highlander, who introduced himself as Samuel Hale, one of the minor Hales, the ones who were Hale by name but not entitled to the castle, not that he'd want it, it cost a fortune to heat, and most commonly called Samwise because he was the oldest, not the wisest. He was a tall broad man with black hair and a beard that he stroked when he laughed with a boom that made Harli look at him askance wondering where the sound came from. He was handsome enough, Stiles thought, for a man as large, if not larger than his father's knight Ennis who resembled a skinned bear. Samwise gave the impression that he hadn't been skinned first, for the hair on his arms and the bit of his thigh visible between his garters and his kilt which showed when he walked was as thick and black as fur.

Samwise talked almost as much as Stiles but he was so large and so physical that he damn near knocked Stiles flying when he patted his back for saying something that made him laugh. He was really only an inch or two taller than Stiles but he was so much broader, like a barrel on stout legs and an overwhelming stink of livestock. He was a hearty man, given to exuberance and laughter and Stiles liked him. He wished that Samwise, who was not an intelligent man but was loud, was his guard instead of Erica after spending about the same amount of time with him that he had spent with her just walking to the main hall.

He wore the Hale tartan proudly, a black worsted with twists of heather color and red threads in a crossed pattern that was unique to the clan. Each clan, Samwise explained, had their own distinct colorway, he used the crofter's term for the dyeing, and weave, so that with the right knowledge a Highlander could recognize the clan just by their tartan.

He was explaining this, leading Stiles to the main table when they were passed by another clansman in a kilt, this one was an alpha, Stiles noticed for he wore his hair shorter than most of the clansmen, short enough to display the points of his ears, and surprisingly handsome. He was the sort of handsome that caused people to stop and look, well-kempt and washed clean, with black hair and a well-trimmed beard, with a nose as straight as a knife and wide even cheekbones with a square jaw, and the shaved skin of his throat was neat and trim. He walked on a crutch and had a scowl that could have curdled milk. He glared at Stiles as he walked past as if he was the architect of whatever it was that had so offended him.

Stiles blinked and took a step closer to Samwise as the man passed. Stiles gaze might have followed him for he had a fine pair of calves visible in his stockings and garters tied underneath his knees and Stiles claimed youth enough to not know better than to track the beauty of alphas, even ones that looked angry enough to break him in two.

Samwise led him to the dais where the main seat was empty, sat underneath painted wooden shields. There was a long table, made from an entire piece of wood which was clearly the Hale family table where they could watch over their clansmen as they ate. There were braziers down the length of the hall but they did little to take the early winter chill from the space, but the crowded clansmen and women, all of the people who worked for the castle, were bustling about, whilst the serving girls, under the keen eye of Rachel, leaning on the cane that Mistress McCall had given her, watched over them with a steely gaze.  
Stiles was given a seat at the table, next to Peter, in the position that would have been given to Peter's _mari_ had he been wed.

At the table, separated by the empty chair, were the other nobles of the castle, a tall lady with dark brown hair in a wool gown and silk surcoat, such as would have been expected in Stiles' father's court, like an unmarried beta woman she wore her hair uncovered and fixed with pins and laces, but she had perhaps ten years on Stiles so she must have been a widow. She had bird fine features and narrow black eyes, and was pretty but hardly as striking as the alpha who had left, and behind her stood a woman with dusky skin who had clearly come back with the crusades, for her skin was darker than a Spaniard's and her hair was as black as a raven's. She stood, wearing pants and a jerkin, like Erica had, behind her mistress with a blank expression. There was an old woman who appeared to be snoring at the end of the table and on the other side of the table was Peter, the seat he had given to Stiles and another empty chair that Harli shoved out of her way as she lay at Stiles' feet.

The back wall behind them was covered in jute, in preparation for a tapestry that was apparently in progress, and beneath them were the Hale shields, each of them with a crusader's cross - speaking of their journey to the Holy Land and with a wolf rampant as well as the swirling Triskele that was all over the castle, but each of them had a different pattern of chevrons or stripes in different colours. Stiles was reassured that that was the same as his father's castle, it made him feel a little less foreign in these lands.

"Stiles," Peter said, putting a trencher of bread on the pewter plate in front of him, "so good of you to come," he looked around, before adding in an exhausted gravel, "where's Erica?" like he was no longer surprised at what was happening, just disappointed.

"She was worried about the traps that she still had out," Stiles said, "thinking I would be alone in my latched room all night I sent her to go deal with them," he wasn't sure why he covered for Erica because she was meant to be with him, "I didn't realise I would be summoned for dinner and I might need a guard."

"You need a guard," Peter said, "you have claimed sanctuary and so we have to take care that you won't bolt, they're not protecting you," he said as if he was explaining things to a small child, "she's to protect us from you."

Stiles shrugged and reached over to take the large tureen of broth, "as far as I know traps aren't easy to make," he said, "and she's kind of scary, I don't want her angry at me."

Peter huffed a laugh under his breath, "she probably thinks that Harli will make a lovely coat," Stiles' eyes went wide, "not that she'd wear it, she'd probably just train her to help with her hunting after she's killed you."

Stiles barked out a laugh, his entire body given to the gesture, rocking in his chair, "you know she was given to me because she couldn't hunt a dead rabbit in a box?" After soaking his bread with broth to soften it he spooned on pease pudding and accepted two slices of the roast mutton on the table.

"Are you given to hunting dead rabbits in boxes?" the fine-boned woman said and even her voice was bird-like.

"Mistress Blake," Peter said, introducing her, "this is Stiles, we met on the road here," he said, "I do not think that you have met."

"I can't imagine we have much in common," she said with some disdain whilst her servant filled her plate and wine cup.

"Probably not," Stiles said, "are you the one doing the tapestry for the wall behind us?"

His question amused Peter no end because he smirked around his wine cup, and Mistress Blake looked like she had smelled something rather distasteful for her face twisted a little. She might have been lovely to look on but she was sour.

A black man, as large as Samwise had been but shaved of head and face, came in and took the seat next to Stiles apologizing for his lateness. Peter took the opportunity to change the subject before Stiles managed to anger Mistress Blake with him in the middle. He introduced the latecomer as Boyd, one of the knights who lived in the castle and who worked as the guard of Lord Derek who was not eating with them tonight.

Boyd seemed determined to just eat, moving Harli out of the way with his foot so she was under the table without worrying that she was such a large dog and looked like she should be vicious - she was not - and then hunching over his plate and cramming food into his mouth like someone was going to take it from him, or worse, try to engage him in conversation.

He almost wolfed his meal down to an extent that Stiles, who was not one for lingering over his food himself, blink before Peter recaptured his attention with conversation.

"My nephew was meant to join us for a meal," he said, "but he would rather eat alone in his room and be unsociable." He took a small bite of food and chewed it thoughtfully, "as if he is trying to get Rachel up and down the stairs - with her knees."

"If he's in the upper tower I'm sure that Rachel has someone she can send up and down the stairs many times today," Stiles answered referring to the serving girls who had been cursed out this morning.

"He's not," Peter told him, "but I'm sure that Rachel will find reasons to send the girls up there first," he winked at Stiles and it was a simple harmless flirtation, he was flirting with Stiles because he liked to flirt and he thought that Stiles would be fun to flirt with, not because he was interested in him as a sexual partner."

"I would be pleased to deliver Lord Hale's meals to him," Mistress Blake said from the side, "his room is near enough to mine that it would not be a hardship."

"Not for you," Peter said, "but if my nephew does not wish to be surrounded by people because he hates small talk having a guest deliver his meals would defeat the object."

Mistress Blake honestly pouted, as if she was not years beyond the age where such a thing was attractive, even Stiles was getting too old for such a gesture. It was the sort of thing that was expected of a young omega trying to appear old enough for marriage in their desperation to be treated like an adult.

Peter leaned in towards Stiles to deliver in a conspiratorial whisper, "my nephew despises people, all people, even me," he said, "I can't imagine what it is that I have done to earn such approbation, but I probably deserve it."

"Probably," Stiles agreed, "I would blame Harli but I haven't met your nephew so the idea that she has to take the blame is moot, I have nothing to blame her for."

"You strike me as the sort of boy who finds a lot of things to blame on that poor dog," Peter said.

"I am as blameless as freshly fallen snow," Stiles said, "it's entirely her fault."

Harli, suspecting that they were talking about her, stuck her head out from under the table between Peter's legs to rest her head on his lap, this had a dual purpose Stiles knew from long experience, she wanted both him to rub her head and tell her she was a good girl and to catch any food he dropped at the sudden appearance of a dog's head on his lap that weighed as much as a bushel of oats. It was something she had done back at his father's castle where Stiles had sat at one of the lower tables, not as low as the servants who needed to eat and shared the great hall, but not as high as the lords who served important purposes in his father's court.

Harli had been a birthday gift, a mastiff who lacked the temperament to hunt or be menacing, despite the promise in her paws. If she was to be no good other than as a lap dog she might as well be given to Stiles, they could be oddities together.

Peter, it seemed, was no more able to escape her "poor me" gaze as Stiles himself was for he slipped her some mutton under the table.

Harli already adored Peter, he was not dissuading her affection anytime soon and by the end of the meal, Stiles was worried she would follow Peter to his bed as opposed to sharing Stiles own. Peter noticing her affection went, "I'm irresistible to the ladies," with a quirk of his eyebrows that made Stiles laugh again. "There was a time I went to collect taxes from one of the outer croft villages and they had all these old spinsters, widows all who had outlived husbands, crones each and every one," he started telling the story which he punctuated with expressions and gestures until Stiles was holding his sides he was laughing that hard at the tale of a youthful Peter and the amorous intentions of no less than six very old ladies. Stiles didn't believe it for a minute but it was funny and it meant that when Samwise returned him to his bedroom, pulling up a stool to stand guard because of Erica's absence he was still smiling as he climbed into the bed that had been turned down for him with clean sheets and a warmed brick under the blankets.


	7. Chapter 7

Stiles was woken up by Harli lifting her head from the dip of his waist and look at the door as it opened and Erica came in. There was a stool in front of the fire which she sat on to tug off her boots. A heavy winter rain that had started up late into the night had caught her, so she had splatters of mud all the way up her leather trousers and arms, and her cloak was wet enough it left a smear on the floor where she dragged it behind her.

"You covered for me with Peter," she said, not caring that he was in bed or half asleep.

Stiles made a noise into his pillow. The bed that Peter had given him was clearly intended for guests of the rank he was, not the beta Peter had him pretending to be. The mattress was flock stitched with sweet smelling herbs with linen sheets polished smooth. The blanket was knit and heavy, the weight of it delicious after the nights spent huddled in his cloak relying on Harli for warmth, with the fire banked by Samwise before he sat guard outside the door, meant the room was warm and comfortable, even when Erica came in just before dawn.

Harli didn't seem threatened because as soon as she got the opportunity her heavy head went back down on Stiles' waist and with a few wet smacks of her mouth went back to sleep.

"You're not getting in this bed," Stiles slurred into the pillow, "you're soaking and all over mud, I've only just got this bed," he was almost muttering, "I'm not risking it." He repeated Harli's gesture of smacking his mouth together, because it mouth felt like he had spent it sucking on the fabric sleeve on the pillow, and tried to go back to sleep.

Erica was having none of it, taking the shutters from the window to let the pre-dawn grey light in and increasing the sound of the rain.

"I came in and was summoned to Peter," she said, and it could not have been a long meeting because she was still sopping wet, "and he said that you said that you had told me to go out and check my traps."

"Ummm," Stiles murmured into the pillow.

"He didn't believe you, you know," Stiles made another noise to suggest that he was listening - which he was not - "he wanted to know what it was that I offered you that you lied to him for me, so what did I offer?" There was a threat in her voice.

"I've been here a few days," Stiles muttered, "and everyone is getting in trouble, I just wanted one day without someone getting shouted at, pardon me for wanting an easy life."

Erica barked out a laugh, "you are like a bad smell leading to things that shouldn't be there," she said, wringing out her hair.

"You'll need to wash that," Stiles muttered, "or it will just be all fluff and nonsense."

"And what do you know about hair?" Erica asked.

"I used to help with my sister's hair," he said, thumping the pillow a few times to plump it back up, "I know my way around a comb and braid. Now I'm going back to sleep."

Erica laughed again, her entire mien and posture was one of mockery, "I thought you were going to wash my hair," she said.

"Go to the kitchens," he said, "get the water and soap and a little oil, not grease, oil, and I'll wash your hair." He was sure that would give him at least another half hour of sleep.

Erica returned with a cloth wrapped around her head and a linen dress on with a scowl that looked like it would influence the weather. She slapped the jug of water and bowl on a wooden table in front of a chair and made enough noise that stiles had to get up. "Rachel," she said the name with a sneer, "said if I was going to wash my hair I might as well have a bath, and she took my clothes to clean whilst I was in the bath, I can have them back when they're dry," she sounded so angry about the whole affair that Stiles thought it was hilarious. Hanging from her shoulder, on a leather strap across her body, was a wooden box that clattered when she put it on the table next to the bowl. "I had to go to the apothecary under the chapel to get these," she said, turning the key and revealing a series of small brown glass bottles with glass stoppers. They were clearly very valuable. "Your oils," she said angrily like he had asked her for the moon and she needed praise for delivering it.

Stiles had climbed out of bed and tugged his pants up, Mistress McCall had made sure that he had woolen ones because she knew how omegas felt the cold, and then a woolen jerkin which went over his linen shift, tucked into his pants and pushed down so that it hung flat, then pulled on a belt with his pouch on it, Harli didn't bother to get out of bed although she watched Erica warily.

Harli wasn't sure if she liked Erica - she hadn't fed her yet or offered attention.

Erica sat down and undid the cloth about her hair letting it slip down, wet and lank down her back.

Stiles covered his mouth when he yawned, and then started fussing with the bottles which were labelled with their contents and were perfumed oils. He took the one labelled Convallaria because it smelled clean and fresh. He had a brief moment of thought if Mistress McCall had knowledge of this apothecary and if she had access to it.

He splashed the oil on his hands before he started to run it through her hair. He had always loved doing this for Sydney before she had married, and it had been something he had learned to do for his mother, and then later for himself, making sure his hair was sweetly scented and easier to tame.  
  
Once he was happy with the oil he began to comb out her hair, at first with short stabbing pulls designed to ease out the tangles, then long slow draws, and it fast became obvious that Erica had never had her hair dressed before. She had started off angry and tense and slowly relaxed into it as Stiles talked about nonsense, not even a hundred percent sure of what he was saying, still part way asleep.

He gathered her hair into tails which he created a net of braids around on either side of her face, not unlike how she had worn her hair before.

When he was done he used the water in the bowl to wash his hands, and dried them off on the towel that had been around Erica's hair. "You look beautiful," he told her.

She snorted and climbed out of the chair. "I was called to Peter this morning when I came back, two hours before dawn."

"Does he sleep?" Stiles asked.

"Probably not, he's Peter," she answered "If a dog walks in mud in the keep he's there to tell it to wipe it's feet." Stiles snorted a laugh at the comment. "He told me that he was inconsiderate in rearranging my schedule without letting me argue it," she raised a blonde eyebrow, "those were the words he used, so now I am to wake you and bring you to Rachel for breakfast, which allows me to collect my traps in the morning, and I can set them when you have supper with him in the evening. Other than that we are sticking together like rabbit glue, and apparently I am to catch more rabbits because we need more glue, which I think is why he changed his opinion," Peter struck Stiles as the sort of person who never did anything without several reasons, and taking Stiles in was something that he had seen as an opportunity, even if Stiles had no idea what that opportunity was.

\--

Erica led him down to the kitchens across the courtyard by a way that Stiles had not been before, the entire keep seemed to be an interconnected warren designed to confuse anyone who came to invade it. The packed mud of the courtyard was still hard and frozen from the winter's night but the influx of livestock and people were softening the mud, "I hate skirts," Erica said, "they always get covered in sheep shit."

"You have to hitch your hems," Stiles said and when it became clear that Erica, who preferred breeches clearly had no idea how to do that, he showed her how to lightly pull up her skirt so that only her feet were in the mud but she wasn't showing off anything but her boots.

"How do you know how to do this, monk?" she asked him with narrowed eyes.

Stiles, as an omega, had grown up in skirts, he had been chided and even struck for not taking care of his hems when the mud was about but Peter said not to tell anyone that he was an omega, that if he wanted to remain hidden he could not announce himself, so he quickly answered her "I have a sister," he said. That was something of an understatement, for he had six sisters, four alphas, a beta and an omega, and both the omega, Sydney, and the beta, Lorelei, had worn skirts, in fact Stiles had inherited Sydney's dresses several times. He still felt weird in pants because he didn't have the hems when he walked.

Erica did not look like she entirely believed him but she did not press him further.

A strange man stepped in front of them, he was slightly hunched over and had a cap which he held in his hands and his eyes were entirely on Harli, and he burbled out something that Stiles could not make out at all. He spoke Scots, because his father had made it clear that they would sell him in marriage and so languages were important to his expensive education, he also spoke Latin, French, was comfortable if not fluent in German, which no one really spoke, and could read some Greek because his tutor saw no harm in it.

Whatever language this man spoke it was gibberish to Stiles.

"What do you think, Stiles?" Erica asked when the man had stopped speaking.

"I'm thinking I have no idea what it was that he said," Stiles replied.

Erica barked out a laugh, "he wants to know if you want your fine looking dog fed with the keep's own animals, he's the houndmaster."

"Oh, that would be wonderful," Stiles said, "if it would be no bother."

The man said another string of unintelligible noises which Erica seemed to understand well enough, and Harli was lured off into the stables with what looked like a dried fish, which she did enjoy.

And then feeling even more naked than he did without his skirts he went into the kitchens for Rachel to give him his own breakfast, Erica falling into step beside him but not giving him the same comfort that Harli did.

\--

After a heavy breakfast of porridge and flaked smoked fish which hung in his stomach like a brick, Erica finished her own flagon of small beer, wiping her mouth with her sleeve, and took him back out into the courtyard hissing comments at the highlanders who gave her what could be considered compliments, but were basically sexualised offers and that Erica had no patience for, and back to the stables where the hounds were waiting.

The pack, such as they were, were long tall long haired creatures with expressive eyes and sad faces, and in the middle of them romping like a puppy with two of them, as broad as they were long, was Harli, who when she saw Stiles lolloped over to him, licked his face and then went back to her play.

The houndskeeper said something that sounded like "Dyoo ken ifn I leeds yon lass wee muh oon wee daigs roond'n lock" Stiles still had no idea what it was the man said and looked at Erica for a translation.

"He's taking the dogs out for a run," Erica said, enunciating the words, "he wants to know if you want him to take Harli with."

Although Stiles wanted her beside him he knew that a good run would be good for her, she could be fractious and a little destructive if she wasn't worn out and she liked the other dogs and she would enjoy it. He nodded but he had a lump in his throat, the Hale Clan had been so kind to him and the dog, so Erica told the man it was well and that they would be at Mistress McCalls which upon hearing the houndskeeper went and fetched a small jar and said something to Erica that might have been, "aye yon Mizress Muhliss hazun salb fer yon doogs puhs, ken ye ass if'n ken heb sum moore" Erica took the jar and assured him that she would but Stiles was baffled, unable to make out a word the man said.


	8. Chapter 8

In the days following his eviction from the ruined infirmary Stiles fell into an easy routine, Erica woke him and took him, via the houndsmaster, who Stiles still couldn't understand, to the kitchens- where he was given a breakfast of bread and hard cheese wrapped in a cloth - and then walked down to Mistress McCall who put him to work until it started to darken outside where Erica would return, having slept and attended to her own business, before he was brought to supper with Peter, sometimes in the main hall, sometimes in his private offices, but never in Peter's own chambers, and never unchaperoned, and then he was led to bed where Erica watched over him half the night and then Samwise for the other half.

Mistress McCall, upon learning that Stiles could read and write, had put him to work copying her notes from sheets of birch bark to proper parchment, occasionally feeding him - she shared her own nuncheon with him and Heather - or cups of herbal tea.

She insisted that he stretch out his hands and back every few hours and late morning, whilst she was cooking nuncheon, he accompanied Heather on her deliveries so that he wasn't just sat at his lecturn like one of those monks who grew old and crooked she was keen to point out.

She did, however despite her cold manner, praise his hand and how cleanly he cut the tip of his pen, he knew how to use an ink stone, something she had always despaired of teaching her son, and she had no issue with him flitting from page to page as long as all the pages were done and bound.

Stiles actually enjoyed it, except when it was raining. Mistress McCall's lecturn for writing was next to a window to catch as much light as it could but was against the stove so it was always toasty warm whilst being sheltered from the wind and rain and there was a lamp if the sky was very overcast. She had a reed lights as well as she complained about people ruining their eyes working in poor light.

It was always a surprise to leave the cosy little house, for she kept it warm enough that he didn't have to wear his cloak and cap, to make deliveries with Heather for as soon as they stepped out of the door it was like the cold punched them.

Heather was a pleasant enough companion, she knew everyone in the town and was happy to flirt with both Stiles and some of the clansmen who they passed. She introduced Stiles as the new doctor who was working with Mistress McCall whilst they cleaned out the infirmary, and wasn't it a scandal the state that it had gotten into - why old Lady Talia would be horrified she had been so proud of it and Lord Peter was fit to burst with anger - so they should be kind to him.

Sometimes her duties included tasks that Stiles would have considered distasteful such as cutting the toenails of an old spinster, who continued spinning her top as Heather took what looked like a rock to the knuckles of her toes after soaking them in hot water and something that smelled of rotten eggs. Those tasks she insisted were very important, but Stiles had tried to leave the room when she lanced a boil on the miller's neck that was the size of a hen's egg.

With a laugh Heather marched him back in and told him firmly that if he was going to pass for a doctor, when it was clear that Mistress McCall was going to be doing the heavy lifting there after all she was a doctor trained in Sorrento, and lancing a boil was the sort of thing a sheep could do.

So he had to stand next to her and watch as she heated the lancet in a candleflame and then pierced the boil, which then sort of splurted out it's contents and caused Stiles' gorge to rise. With a clean cloth she squeezed out the contents, then flushed it from a wineskin full of salt water, and dabbed it with another piece of cloth dipped in wine before applying a honey plaster. Stiles was glad to return to his copying because writing about the technique of lancing a boil didn't include the smell, which was like sour milk, that accompanied it.

He did lose his accounts when he attended the birth of a child with Mistress McCall, to serve as labourer, bringing her the things she asked for whilst she did the important things, but when she cut the cord as the mother gave birth to the placenta Stiles put the babe he had been holding, still covered in themuck of birth, into it's cradle and lost his breakfast behind the house. Which of course Mistress McCall made sure to tell Peter who thought that the only way it could have been funnier was if he had cast his accounts on the baby.

He learned, and to Mistress McCall's surprise, he learned fast. He was rapt with the information in her pages and she kept telling him that there should be more in the infirmary, and although he had thought that they had almost certainly be stolen, he did want to read them. The theory of medicine and herbcraft was fascinating but the practical did not agree with his constitution.

Erica did not become more pleasant or pleased to be in charge of Stiles, unsure if she was protecting Peter from him or him from Peter, but was generally very annoyed at how she was expected to simply drop what it was she was doing to look after someone she considered useless. She had opinions. She had many opinions and mostly all of them involved being angry at other people controlling her life. She was an outcast because she had a falling sickness where she might at any moment be have seizures and shake until her body voided itslef and there were those who thought she might be possessed and no one wanted to hire a girl who was possessed so she had to make her own way and she was making her own way thank you very much when Peter co opted her into guarding this nincompoop who served no purpose that Erica could see other than being a pain in her ass.

Peter seemed to enjoy sharing his supper with Stiles, asking him about his day and letting Stiles ramble and didn't bother about his manners or if he gestured with a piece of meat in his hands so he waved it about like a club and not a pheasant leg, or if he slurped up his broth or any of the things Margaret had always chastised him for, because no one would want an omega who was splattering gravy everywhere and draining his broth like a bogbeast. It struck Stiles that he might actually be happy in Faiolteach because even with Erica's sour manner they made him feel so welcome and part of their family.

He knew Peter had a plan for him, but he was beginning to suspect he just wanted someone who could read the books of medicine to replace the doctor that they had lost.

He was kind of heartbroken when they announced that Rachel had declared that the infirmary chapel was clean enough that he could move in, it meant giving up his warm flock bed and blankets and the fireplace with the mat that Harli had taken over for her own. He packed his things, few as they were, into his satchel and went with Harli loping along beside him, grumbling because she had spent the day with the huntskeeper and now she was tired and wanted nothing more than to flop down on her mat in front of the fire with a plan for later in the evening to beg scraps from Peter, so Erica lifting the mat, it was apparently so full of Harli's hair it was useless for anything else but appeasing her, and led the two of them down to the chapel.

It was entirely different to how it had been. The floor was large slate tiles that were polished to a shine, there was a grill over a channel that was designed for hot water to run through to warm the entire room, and the beds had been laid down with fresh linen canopies and straw mattresses rolled up at the headboard of each of them. Beside each bed was a wooden stool, and it surprised Stiles how different it was. Well lit from torches fixed on the wall, despite it being mid afternoon and the sky being pink and not yet dark, he could see the paintings on the walls and around the altar and he could see a small door in a recess that had been covered by a bed leaning against the wall above it.

Still carrying Harli's mat, Harli had tried to liberate it at one point, taking it in her teeth until Erica glared at her giving the mat a healthy tug so Harli's ears went down and she let go, Erica unlocked the door and went "there you go, your new home."

As the entrance way was dark Stiles took one of the torches off the wall and went in gingerly, Erica rolled her eyes but followed whilst Harli, who was scared of the dark, surprising for such a huge dog, just sat down and whined.

Down a flight of tightly curving steps was a large room and that was what Peter had given Stiles when he had seen him in the woods that night, a fortnight before. It was white washed and like Mistress McCall's house jars and bags lined the walls, each of them labelled in a sloping hand, herbs hung from the joists in the ceiling, high enough that even Stiles would need a stepstool to reach them. There must have been as many as ten books on the shelf, one large as a bible open upon the work table. There were metal instruments he had no name for, a chest of tiny drawers, one of which hung half open, and a fireplace as large as, if not more so, than that of Mistress McCall's house although the room was not so big. The floor was slate, and both a besom and a mop were present to keep it clean, although Rachel's girls had not been here, and a line of windows topped the west wall, letting light in but like the herbs were too high to easily reach, and like Mistress McCall's windows, were sheltered from the weather.

The infirmary office, the room for the doctor, was nice, a flock mattress was on a shelf set into the wall and lined in oak to keep the heat in with a set of wooden doors to pull tight and keep the heat in.

Erica unfurled the mat in front of the fire so Harli, who was still at the top of the stairs and whining, would have somewhere to sleep - although Stiles knew she would join him in the bed, the idea was there even if ultimately useless, before she lit the fire.

It had hooks and racks and things for cooking, but Stiles got the impression that it was for the production of potions and salves not food, as there was nothing that could be eaten, except a large pot of honey that was on the mantle. When the fire was lit and a few reedlamps around the room, which made it more homey - the period it had stood empty had let the cold and damp seep into the stone so the room felt much colder than the rest of the castle, Stiles called for Harli who crept down gingerly as if she was going to face a dragon, saw the fire and her mat, wagged her tail so severely that Stiles was worried for one of the jars on the shelf beside the fireplace, before she flopped down and rolled on her back.

"Your dog is broken," Erica said, with a sigh.

"I don't know," Stiles was holding his hands out in front of the fire, "I think she's got things set," he was trying to warm his legs through, the air felt damp and it would take time for the fire to dry things, "she has a life of hanging out with friends, getting meals she likes, places in front of every fire she passes and she has Lord Peter wrapped around her finger, with no work to do for it, except be with me."

"Mistress Blake has lap dogs," Erica said, "yapping biting things, but they at least know that they are dogs."

"She knows she's a dog," Stiles said fondly, "she's just mastered how to play us all," Harli had her mouth open and her tongue hanging out, in canine glee.

"She ran from a mouse," Erica said drily.

"It was a big mouse," Stiles told her with a smile, "and she did bark at it when it ran away." Erica just sat down in one of the chairs placed before the fire, she didn't say anything, she just gave him a look that told him exactly what she thought of that entire adventure. Stiles took the other seat, Harli had run from the mouse, which might have been even more scared of her than she had been of it. It wasn't the worse thing that she had run from, that included spiders, but it was pretty embarrassing.


	9. Chapter 9

After taking the effort to sweep the infirmary offices, and investigate the room, which was quite large and had everything needed for a person to live quite comfortably without ever dealing with anyone, Stiles built up the fire high to try and get the cold damp from the stone. He heated flat stones by the fireplace, one of which was intended to warm the blankets of his bed, and the others were to sit on the rumpled and damp twisted pages of the books that had been left there so that they could become readable once the parchment was ironed flat. He was warming himself through on a tall wooden chair, one that looked like it had belonged to a nobleman at some point and was draped with a deer hide with the fur left on to keep it’s heat, and with a peppermint tea, - from the dried peppermint that hung from the ceiling - in his hands he was delightfully comfortable and warm and content.

Erica was working on restringing the leather straps on the seat of a second chair, whose broken state was hidden by a second deer hide, so that she could sit with him when Samwise came to fetch him for supper.

Samwise let himself in, Harli raised her head to investigate from the sheepskin that was her own now, and decided that Samwise was welcome to the little pool of warmth and contentment that was her own. “You ready for supper, lad?” he asked, he had a rolling burr to his speech as if if the words were not sufficiently buttered they wouldn't find their way through his thick red beard. In fact if not for his kilt and blouse he might have resembled a bright orange gorse bush. “You look like you might let your belly remain empty just to stay as warm and comfortable, is that so, lad?” Samwise might not have been wise, even if he was the wisest of the Sams, but he was jolly and personable and Stiles found his company more pleasant than that of Erica who had the manner of a soaked cat.

“Oh but think how much more comfortable I would be with a belly full," Stiles said, standing up and brushing down his jerkin, he was pretty sure he had brushed the dust off himself and into the fire, but if he was meeting with Peter he should at least make the effort, just in case. Peter was the sort of alpha who cared for such things.

Harli perked up at the promise of supper and stood up, starting to whine, because she might have liked Peter more in the short term than she liked Stiles and she loved supper.

With the fire set in a brazier in the huge fireplace, set back from the edge of the hearth, Stiles was happy to let it burn, and follow Samwise up to the main hall and the main table where Stiles would sit with Peter, with the fire behind them to try and battle the winter’s chill.

Stiles sat down next to Peter, and poured himself a cup of wine, whilst Harli whined at him for attention, and Peter was glad to rub her head and ears whilst telling her that she was a good girl and he was glad to see her too, whilst she drooled all over the pleats of his kilt. When he was done being adored, she she did adore him, he called for liquor, something he said was locally fermented and was kept in oak casks for at least ten years to improve the taste, and said “although I know you're not used to spirits, tonight is a night for drinking,” he said and gave no more reasonings as why.

The spirit, which had a name that was clearly local and Stiles couldn't quite make out, burned his throat and sat in his belly like a warm coal and went down easy as he ate, occasionally taking sips as Peter topped up his cup, and everyone around them was drinking and the more the beer went around the more merry the people in the hall got, and whilst Stiles picked at the bones of a piece of mutton he had been eating and had run out much quicker, it seemed, than usual, someone pulled out an instrument, a citole, and sat on a stool began to play and sing a song about a merry widow that was just shy of being a bawd, and Peter’s mood improved the more he drank.

Part of Stiles wondered if Peter was trying to get him drunk so his morals would be loosened but Peter had been nothing but kind to him, and had offered him sanctuary, so if hurt him then Mother Church would be able to take action against him, which it would have to so that it could maintain the laws of Sanctuary and Peter would be hung, drawn and quartered which Stiles did not want for him because he liked Peter. He just didn't like Peter in that way. He enjoyed flirting with him, and the games of farkle that they played whilst they talked. Stiles was willing to admit that he was a little drunk, so when Peter went to refill his cup he waved him off, calling over one of the serving women and asking for small beer instead.

Stiles might not have been a heavy drinker but he had grown up around men who drank to such excess that they cast their accounts and he had just cleaned his new rooms.

“Sing,” Peter said, urging Stiles on, “entertain us, we’ve heard all the songs he knows a hundred times over, you have to know something new," and with the spirit in his blood it seemed like a good idea. So he stood up and stumbled over, because his legs were not working the way that they should which suggested he had stopped drinking just in time, to the man with the citole. He was a tall man with a head of blonde curls that made him look like an angel in the illustrations on the infirmary walls.

“His lordship requests that I sing," Stiles told him, “I only know how to do it in French,” he told the player, “the tunes are quite simple, you should be able to pick it up after a verse.”

The clansman just handed him the citole with a “I’ll be wanting that back when you're done,”

Stiles took the instrument, testing it with the tips of his fingers, and then sat on the stool because he wasn't sure he wouldn't fall over otherwise, and started to sing, too drunk to care if he was in tune or on key.

“Tout allait bien pour un moment  
Je pourrais sourire pendant un certain temps  
Mais je t'ai vu la nuit dernière  
Tu as tenu ma main si fort  
Comme vous vous êtes arrêté pour dire "Bonjour"  
Oh, tu me souhaites bien  
Vous, vous ne pouviez pas dire  
Que j'avais pleuré sur toi  
Pleurer sur toi  
Quand vous avez dit "si longtemps"  
Me laisse debout tout seul  
Seul et pleure, pleure  
Pleurer, pleurer  
C'est difficile à comprendre  
Mais le contact de ta main  
Peut commencer à pleurer”

As he searched for the note, unsure if he found it, he became aware of a pair of eyes on him, a gaze that felt different, and in the doorway was the man on the crutch staring at him. He was a handsome man, with a neat beard and light coloured eyes despite his dark hair. He was wearing a well laundered pourpoint over a neatly pressed kilt, and thick stockings with cross garters, and a hood around his shoulders, but he was leaning heavily upon the crutch beside him. He stared at Stiles whilst he sang

“Je pensais que j'étais sur toi  
Mais c'est vrai, tellement vrai  
je t'aime encore plus  
Que je faisais avant  
Mais, ma chérie, que puis-je faire?  
Car tu ne m'aimes pas  
Et je vais toujours pleurer sur toi  
Pleurer sur toi”

Boyd, who had been at the main table, taking the jug of spirits from Peter after a few spoken words Stiles could not hear, joined him and the man on the crutch spoke with Boyd and then the two of them left, and baffled, Stiles finished the song.

“Oui, maintenant vous êtes parti  
Et à partir de ce moment  
Je vais pleurer, pleurer  
Pleurer, pleurer  
Oui, pleurer, pleurer  
Sur vous”

A few people showed appreciation of the song when Stiles bowed, and then put his hand down on the stool to steady himself as all the spirits he drank rushed to his head when he bent, and he stumbled back to the table under which Harli was gnawing on a bone.

“It’s the anniversary of my sister’s death,” Peter said, “your song was lovely, I have no idea what you were singing though,” he toasted him with his cup, “Talia would have loved it, she would be shouting for you to sing it again, but," he belched, “Isaac gets pissy if people steal his star,” he laughed, “do you know Isaac, he sings so sweetly but he has a foul temper.”

Stiles considered asking Peter about the man with the fine clothes but Mistress Blake cut him off. “It is a sorry day,” she said, putting her hand on Peter’s own, but then Peter jerked his hand away, “I share your mourning for Lady Talia was dear to my own heart and I remember her in my prayers.”

Peter cursed at her, “my sister despise you," he said, the spirits making his tongue loose, “and if I could I would send you back to your family, but we owe you,” he said leaning back in his chair, “and we pay our debts but do not presume to speak to me of my sister, you didn’t know her, you didn’t love her, you didn’t.”

"Peter," Stiles said softly, “you said you’d play Farkle with me," he lied, trying to defuse the situation. Farkle was a dice game that Peter enjoyed mostly for the betting and bluffing that the players attempted to win more despite their luck. There was some strategy involved but little enough that anyone could quickly learn to play.

Peter, clearly very drunk, blinked at him as he tried to work out what was happened, “did I," he reached over and took Stiles hand in his own, “I like you, Stiles," he said, “you cheat at dice better than most, it makes the game almost fun, if I said we’d play we better play,” he agreed, easily led by the spirits he had drunk.

Samwise caught Stiles’ glance and came over to help Peter to his feet before Mistress Blake either stormed out in tears or Peter clawed her eyes out, “I’ll be okay going back to the infirmary," he said, he was a little drunk but he knew the way, “if you want to take him and put him to bed.” Samwise struggled for a moment before he agreed, and Stiles walked with them to Peter’s private chambers maintaining the illusion he was going to play Farkle because Peter was so drunk he could barely walk.

Stiles made his way, unescorted unless one counted Harli which Stiles didn’t, down to the infirmary, latching the door behind him, took the brick that he had left by the fire and slipped it between the sheets of his new bed, and prepared himself for bed, being wise enough to make himself some marigold tea before he joined the brick in the bed where the sheets were warm, tapping on the down mattress for Harli to join him, where she hopped up, curled up between him and the mattress and took a few large mouth slapping yawns before she rested her head across his chest to go to sleep.

With the spirit muddling his head it didn't take long to manage.

He woke, sluggishly, when Harli lifted her head to react to the thumping on the infirmary door. It was still dark out, the only light was from the banked fire, but he slipped out of bed, pulled a cloak around his shoulders to cover him except his braies which he had been sleeping in, and with Harli stuck like glue to his thigh, he opened the door.

Holding a lamp was Sir Boyd, “you need to come with me," he said, “his lordship is requesting your aid.”

Stiles tried to understand what was happening, “wouldn't you be better off with Mistress McCall, she trained in Salerno,” he protested. Boyd didn’t react at all, his entire expression remained impassive so that Stiles might as well have been talking to the wall to gain more influence. “Let me get dressed, I’ll not be long.”


	10. Chapter 10

Boyd led Stiles, and Harli for she disliked being left alone and might have destroyed their new home out of anxiety if she didn't howl along with it, to the private chambers of the Lord of Faoilleach. There were lamps all along the corridors but with the winter Stiles had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, it was well known that omega felt the cold and he seemed to feel it more than most, and he had been roused from his warm bed.

Boyd was just wearing a jerkin and pants, so the cold didn't seem to bother him at all.

He opened the door to a well lit room with a large fireplace, although the fire there was small and well contained, there were carpets on the floor and hangings on the walls, with wainscoting between the hangings, designed to keep the heat in. Harli bulled her way in and went over to the fireplace, casting a glance to the man on the chair by the window, turned around three times and then lay down in front of the fire, smacked her jaws a few times and went to sleep.

There was a huge bed, canopied with a dark fabric but with linen sheets turned down at the corner so that the inhabitant of the room could simply climb in, there was probably even a hot brick there to warm the sheets.

As this was happening the man sat in the shadow of the window didn't turn as he addressed Boyd, “I told you I would be fine,” he said and tilted an earthenware cup at him without turning around.

“And I told you I was getting the doctor,” Boyd answered with an air of casual authority, like he knew what was best and would not take simple things like chain of command get in the way of him doing that.

“I also told you not to wake up Mistress McCall,” the Lord said without turning.

“The last time I woke her because you were unwilling to stand on your leg for pain she threw her chamberpot at my head and waved a knife at me, I told you I wouldn't wake her because you were too damn stubborn to see her during the day when she’s seeing patients and you're not bleeding out all over the damn floor like the last woman she had seen.” Boyd had a droll manner, and spoke slowly in deep rumble, “so I got the new boy Peter brought in.”

“My uncle was last seen as Samwise led him down the hall as he was singing about a girl from Aberdeen,” the lord said, he still hadn't turned around from where he sat, “can we trust his judgement?” He was waving his cup around to the side but it was all of him that was able to be seen.

“Do you enjoy being in pain?" Boyd said and walked over to the fire, putting down the box of things that Stiles had given him, it was on a leather strap to make it easier to carry, and was full of creams and oils and tinctures most of which Stiles had no idea of the use of.

At that the Lord got out of his chair, wedging the crutch that had been alongside it under his arm and putting most of his weight on his left leg, so that the right almost hung lifeless in front of him with a neat bend to the knee. He was the handsome man that Stiles had seen that night when he was singing, still wearing his woolen kilt but he had removed his pourpoint jacket so he was just in his shirt, although Stiles didn’t think the room was near warm enough to warrant it. His shirt was well laundered and was open at the neck to show a short expanse of skin and dark hair.

Stiles blamed the remaining liquor in his system, although he had drunk marigold tea before going to bed, for the flush of heat he felt at seeing him. He had taken off his stockings so that his feet and legs were bare. “So,” Stiles said, doing his best to find his voice, “what appears to be the problem?” This was followed by a moment of mental flailing for asking such a stupid question, it was obvious what the problem was, the bare right knee was twisted and swollen, a dark red scar alongside the kneecap looked angry even in the poor light.

The Lord’s reaction was about what Stiles expected, a little amused and baffled that someone asked him that.

It surprised Stiles that he remembered his manners because his tongue felt suddenly far too big for his mouth and his face felt feverish. He had heard that omega and beta princesses were known to swoon in the presence of knights and as someone who had grown up in a royal court had thought it was all hyperbole and nonsense but here he was swooning exactly like those people. The only time his sisters had swooned was when they were ill.

His sisters hadn't seen the lord of Faoilleach however.

“Isn't that a stupid question?” Boyd asked.

Stiles remembered his teacher and how he had peppered him with stupid questions, to the point he was thinking up stupid questions just to ask him, and how the old monk had just smiled and said what Stiles repeated then, “there’s no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid answers.” He hoped he sound wise and knowledgeable but probably didn’t. “I don't know what happened, you probably told every other doctor but that doesn’t mean I know and if you tell me it will be different from whatever another doctor would tell me.” He was babbling and he knew it, and to his surprise the Lord, who was yet to be introduced or introduce himself, smiled as if baffled, before he stumbled back into his chair.

“You talk a lot," the lord said with a smirk on his lips. He had a fine mouth, Stiles thought to himself.

“Yeah, I tend to babble when I’m nervous like when I’m woken from a deep sleep by a strange man and lured into the private chambers of another strange man who wants me to work miracles without telling me what he wants me to do.” Stiles answered, “and as you can see my guard dog is very brave and fearsome," he gestured with his head to Harli who had returned to sleep, “she won't let anyone near that fireplace now, so I will do what I can, but you need to tell me what it is I need to help with, so we can get this over and done with and I can get back to bed, because it's cold and my bed was warm and I think I’m still a little drunk.”

The Lord laughed as if it was the wittiest thing he had ever heard, throwing his head back with the motion to show the line of his throat and the dark hair that grew there around a sharp adam's apple and Stiles wanted to get his mouth on it, which surprised him because he had never wanted to do that to anyone, even when he had had thoughts about Peter that were less than godly for an omega, that were between him and his hand because Peter was a fine looking alpha and neither he nor Peter had intent there, he had not thought about biting into his neck just deep enough to leave a mark.

“Outside Salerno I was attacked by bandits. In the fracas my horse fell on my leg. The doctors at Salerno did what they could. The cold makes it ache. There’s a storm coming.” He spoke in short clipped sentences, clearly uncomfortable with the topic.

“Can I look?” Stiles asked.

“You're the first doctor to ask,” the Lord replied.

“I’m young yet,” Stiles started but again the lord laughed, he gestured to Boyd who brought over a small footstool, a leather thing not unlike a flat ball made of shapes of leather stitched together and he gritted his teeth as he lifted his foot up onto it so Stiles could look, and then when his leg was raised, he tugged up the hem of his kilt to show his knee and the bare skin of his thigh. Stiles’ fingers itched to touch, but instead he did his best to appraise the injury there and not just run his palm up the skin and feel the dark hairs against his skin. He brought a reed light over so he could better see, which he had seen Mistress McCall do.

“Describe the pain to me,” Stiles said so he could stall for time to think, which was hard because now he was close to the alpha he smelled wonderful, warm and pine and leather and even the peppermint in his teacup. He smelled like he could wrap his arms, strong arms, and fold Stiles into his broad chest and make the world go away, and that he could hold Stiles up against a wall and remind him which of them was the alpha and make him submit.

He'd never even known that he had desired it.

“It’s dull most of the time, like a pulled muscle, or an old break, you know when it's almost healed, but when the weather turns, when there is a storm coming, it's sharp like fire,” and this close Stiles could see the muscle spasming in the light, cramping close enough that the leg should move but it was clearly something he was used to.

“I’ll need to consult my books," Stiles said, which was a lie he fully intended to consult Mistress McCall, “and find you an embrocation that can ease the pain, but I am going to try something in the short term.”

Stiles’ nurse had had gout. It meant that she had spent almost all of her time in pain and doing things to ease the pain which involved Stiles running about on errands to help her with pain and he just had to remember that. He remembered going down to the monks and their infirmary for embrocation and epsom salts and sulfur so she could soak her feet.

“I need cloth, an old shirt if you've got one would be brilliant, and water,” Boyd gestured to the pitcher on the shelf in the inglenook fireplace whilst he went into a chest at the bottom of the large bed. Stiles had been trying to ignore the bed.

Stiles poured the water into the kettle, the same one that the lord had been using to make tea, to boil it, and whilst it was doing that he started to root around in his box for peppermint oil, and arnica, which he poured small amounts of into the washbasin before adding the boiling water. Boyd brought across a shirt that looked like it should have been rags years before and was mostly held together by the stitching at the gussets and gores. Using the shears in his box he cut a slit into the fabric and started to tearing it into strips. Matilda had done this when the pain in her legs was at it's worst so it might be able to help, at least in the short term.

He soaked the strips of cloth, makeshift bandages that they were, in the boiling water making sure that they were saturated in the water with curses as his fingers touched it before, he took the first one, wrung out the worst of the wetness in the fabric, and kneeling at the lord’s feet on his thick carpet started to wrap the fabric tight around his thigh. “You need to make sure it’s good and tight,” Stiles said, talking so that he had something to focus on rather than the fact he was elbows deep up an alpha’s kilt with no real chaperone and this alpha was beautiful, his hands white knuckled on the arms of his chair. “Has anyone suggested a brace to you?” he said, some of his father's knights had worn braces, for things like their backs or bad arms, it would support the leg and give him more movement than the crutch and it might help with the pain. “We can try and get the farrier to make you one,” he was babbling again as the lord hissed against the hot fabric. “And a padded bench so you can rest your leg out a little, take the strain from the muscles and not just have to sit in bed,” he remembered how Matilda had done that, taken an old straw mattress and made herself a couch, sitting with her foot up and sending Stiles to get her wine and food.

“I’ll have an omega pack made,” he continued, “that you can heat by the fire and apply directly, just to tide you over until we can find some pain relief that works for you, how does that sound?” The Lord was still clutching the arms of his chair, so that the knuckles of his hands were white, making the dark hair on his fingers seem darker.

“You sang,” the lord blurted out, "I heard you, even up here, singing,” Stiles lifted his head to look at the Hale lord, his mouth slightly open, “your voice is,”

“like someone strangling a particularly vocal cat?” Stiles offered.

“I heard you, today was not a good day," he added, “but I heard you sing, would you sing for me now, to distract me from the pain.”

Stiles offered him a smile, “certainly, my lord.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a minor edit in this chapter, the hospital that would train anyone who came, regardless of religion or gender in the real middle ages was in Salerno not Sorrento, so i corrected it  
> I doubt anyone would notice or care, but just in case


	11. Chapter 11

Morning found Stiles before he was ready for it. He woke up sluggish with a sore throat, and boiled up a bottle of marigold and fennel decoction, at the same time as he rooted around his drawers for mallow root and thyme oil to soothe his throat. It was probably little more than a cold but he had a lot of things to treat it and it was one of the few things that he knew how to make.

The life of a pampered omega meant that he knew how to make citron preserve to add to tea or spread on bread, he knew how to make a hangover cure that mostly worked, especially when sweetened with raw honey, and he knew that mallow root mashed together with thyme and then flooded with hot water and honey soothed a sore throat. He could mostly remember what Matilda used for her gout, which is what he had treated the Lord with, but he was learning. Mistress McCall’s books were full of information and he had always been a knowledge sponge.

So he brewed up some of his hangover cure for Peter because he was pretty sure that he was going to need it, and he had it ready when Samwise came to take him for breakfast. He put it in the satchel over his chest, with the pens he had found in one of the drawers that weren’t the hand-killer that was the best pen in her stash, in preparation for the day.

Peter had led him directly to his private office and unusually had Samwise left outside. He was sat at his desk, and not the usual table where they had breakfast, and there was a plate covered with cloth and two cups, which was unusual because he normally took them from the shelf by the fire. He looked both pissed and grey.

“I brought you something for your stomach,” Stiles said putting the bottle from his satchel on his table with a clink.

“What did you do to my nephew?” Peter’s tone was like ice when he spoke, looking up from his papers.

“I boiled some linen and wrapped it around his thigh,” Stiles answered, taking a seat and gesturing for Harli to sit down beside him, she made a huffing noise and then moved towards the fire where she plopped down in a flump of limbs. “He thought I’m some kind of doctor.”

Peter raised an eyebrow suggesting that Stiles go on, that he give him more information.

“My nurse had gout,” Stiles said, “she was always going to the apothecary, I learned how to treat her when I was barely off leading-strings, I didn’t do anything that I wouldn't have done for her,” he knew that Peter was dangerous, most of the clan was terrified of him and loved him in equal measure, for the first time Stiles saw him in that way.

“Why didn't you just send straight for Mistress McCall?” Peter asked and turned back to his ledgers.

“Boyd came and got me,” Stiles was blabbering and he knew it, “he said that Mistress McCall doesn't like to be disturbed and that his lordship was in great pain and he wanted some help.”

“Boyd is the more sensible of the two of them,” Peter agreed, “and the weather is hell on his leg.”

“He mostly just wanted distracted,” Stiles said and he was aware of how distant his voice sounded, how for a moment he lost himself in the memory of the lord's beauty, and he was beautiful. “He said he was used to the pain, he heard me singing, in the hall, so he asked me to sing for him, that was it, really, i bound his leg in hot linen, suggested a padded bench so he could stretch his leg out and not have to be bedbound, and that maybe a brace would help, I didn't do anything, I swear.”

Peter got up from his chair, with one hand on his desk to steady himself and he burped as if he might, if he moved too quickly, cast his accounts all over himself, and what little color he had drained from his face as he moved over to the main table where Stiles had sat. He took the bottle, uncorked it and drained it till the last drop, pulling a face at the taste.

"It works better if you drink it before you go to bed," Stiles told him.

“I imagine it works better without drinking an entire barrel of _uskebeaghe_ ,” he said as he waited for his head to settle, “I was not in my wits last night and today I am short tempered as I was not before. If you have any plans for my nephew..." he left it open letting Stiles fill in the threat for himself, mostly because he looked too hungover to actually carry it out.

“Peter, I only met him last night," Stiles pointed out, “no one has told me his name, you all just call him his lordship. I have no plans, I’m not in a position to have plans, I think Mistress McCall is training me up so that the idiot alphas who won't go to her have someone to get their boils lanced," he pulled a face at that, “and believe me as gross as that sounds the actuality is worse, it smells! seriously, the smell alone is enough to make me wanna vomit, but then i have to go and help Heather soak some of the old women of the clan's feet in a mixture that looks like powdered pond scum and smells like brimstone. And if that was not enough I have to clip their toenails and help her use a rasp on the skin of their heels. You could build castles with it, I’m not joking, no one would be able to break a seige if their castle was built with the hardskin on old man Dunsworth’s feet. Then there’s the babies, oh my god, Peter, it comes spiralling out of every orifice, they’re small and breakable and full of nasty things that they eject, with force, given the first opportunity and look pleased when they do it. I had to attend a labour, just boiling bandages, but I was there when she ripped open, I mean ripped, the baby’s head was so much bigger than the hole and I was grateful that no one knew I could do that, because now I don't have to, I just have to stand there and go push, and Mistress McCall had to put her hand in, I mean up to the elbow, like a cow doctor, because something was wrong and she didn't mind at all, and it just went in." Stiles pushed the roasted bird away because he had lost his appetite.

“I think my first plan is to find out how to hold my stomach around blood, if it’s my blood I don't mind, I mean you could chop my arm off and I’d be all right, i have to learn how to tie laces with one arm, but someone else pricks their finger and I’m out baptising bushes.” Despite his hangover Peter was smiling, amused at Stiles’ outburst, “sometimes I think that I died in the woods," he added, “and this is where almost good people, well people who are not bad but not as good as they could be, go when they die, a purgatory where they have to do horrible but good things to go to Paradise, it’s the answer that makes the most sense.”

“Take a bannock with you,” Peter told him, going back to his desk, chuckling under his breath, “you’ll be hungry later.” Lamenting the loss of pockets in this new manner of dress, most of his complaints about involved drafts, he shoved one of the buns of bread into the pouch on his waist.

—-

He walked into Mistress McCall’s gnawing on the bannock but not really tasting it, she was busy at her fireplace, with her face blasted red by the heat, she had a veil over her face and was stirring at a copper pan, and Heather was on her knees scouring the stone floor. “Did I miss something?” Stiles asked, because usually at this point Mistress McCall was arranging the morning’s deliveries and making sure that Stiles had pages to copy, and instead it looked like they were attending to the after effects of something.

Heather just glared at him over her shoulder before she went back to scrubbing. Mistress McCall had always kept her floor clean enough to eat off, and Heather did not always look so unhappy to clean it. Stiles, himself, had been on his knees with a rag before after a small child cast the contents of their stomach over it after their parent bringing it to Mistress McCall for exactly that purpose. Afterwards Mistress McCall had given the child a candy, called a jujubee, which was made from honey and ginger, which she tried to grow in her window. She had candies for most everything a child might be afflicted with that only needed a little help, and a child would take a medicine when they wouldn't take a medicine. It was how Stiles had learned that ginger was good for an upset stomach.

“I hear," Mistress McCall said tapping her wooden spoon on the edge of her copper pan in a way that was horrendously ominous, “that someone was called to his lordship’s room last night,” she said in a calm tone, which was all the more terrifying for it.

“Yeah," Stiles said with a sigh, taking off his cloak and satchel and hanging them on the hook by the window that was put aside for his use, before he sat at his lectern to start the day’s work. “His leg hurt,” he said, trying to make light of it, “so I wrapped it in boiled linen and suggested he rest it, Boyd was told specifically not to get you," he looked at Mistress McCall, “because you need your rest,” Boyd had said that she threatened him and threw things, “and so rather than let him suffer they brought in me."

“And that’s all that happened?" Heather asked.

“Yes, why?” Stiles asked, taking out his pens and knife, before starting to file down the ink stone into the dish where it would be mixed with water to form the ink he would write with.

“Arbroath came to me this morning, at first light," Mistress McCall said, “asking me about the dimensions for a padded bench for his lordship, on your instruction apparently, his lordship seems to think you helped him.”

Stiles didn’t know if Mistress McCall was angry because she was woken or because she felt he had usurped his position. “Yes,” he agreed, “if his leg is bad he’s stuck either in a chair which hurts it or bed, so a padded bench allows him to rest his leg and not stay in bed, it just seemed to make sense to me. Like a knotting chair,” he added.

“I had to open the door to Arbroath hammering away like the world was ending," Heather said, “and he tracked half the mud in the castle in,” she was kneeling on a folded piece of burlap to protect her knees and her skirt was tucked into her belt to keep it out of the mud and water on the floor. “Clansmen never think of things like keeping your floors clean, or that this place needs to be clean or sickness will spread, half of what was on his feet was goat shit, and sweeping it just made it worse.”

Mistress McCall, content now that her pan was doing what she wanted it to, went to a small chest beside Heather’s bed, but was not Heather’s own, for she had a shelf and a hook for her belongings, chests were for things that would otherwise create mess Stiles had learned, and from it pulled several skeins of raw wool and a set of needles that were used for making a stocking. “If you want to treat his lordship then you will treat him,” she said, “I have liniament that will help, but to make it serve it's best it needs a raw wool stocking," raw wool was woll that had not been walked, bleached or dyed, and as such had a much higher content of lanolin which allowed it to soak into the skin. Matilda had had a pair of raw wool foot stockings to help treat her gout. “You can knit, correct?” she raised an eyebrow as if daring him to contradict her, “make them long enough to reach his thighs,” she said. “And you’ll want to finish them before the snow comes,” she said, “the snow pains him terribly.”

Stiles started to wind the skeins of greyish white wool into a ball so it would be easier to knit with, he could knit, it had been one of Matilda’s favourite ways to keep him quiet in the corner, he could knit with the same level of detail as any court omega, he didn’t like it, but he could knit.

She gave him an hour to get started before putting down his basket to suggest, without saying anything, that he had deliveries to make.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the song stiles sings  
> The Road by Mirel Wagner  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DClZ_kB0MM8

By the time Stiles’ knitting was four inches long, which was how he started to measure time, because between Mistress McCall’s hard days and being summoned to attend Peter, who was unbothered by the knitting once he learned the purpose of it, Peter announced he would be leaving the next day at dawn to go to the port at Glasgow in regards to a trade deal he was making with the Burgundians or had made, he wasn't clear, so Stiles asked if he was to eat with the clan without Peter’s protection and was told he would eat in the kitchen with the spit boys if Mistress McCall did not feed him. Peter gave the impression that he did not want to go to Glasgow and had put off the journey as long as he possibly could.

Stiles’ education meant that he understood where Burgundy was to point it out on a map and that they considered themselves incredibly fashionable and that they would be interested in the Hale clan whose primary export was both sheep and goat wool. Stiles said that with his needles flashing.

Peter just rolled his eyes and then rolled the dice continuing their game of Farkle.

On the night that Peter left Stiles was kept busy through the day by Mistress McCall who had Stiles making a salve for Rachel's knees and was teaching him the art of alchemy that he could make the salve himself. She had already taught Heather the basics and wanted to make sure that Stiles wouldn’t burn the castle down. She also taught him to make lentil mash in case he ever needed to feed himself. She made him make his marigold hangover remedy and scribbled down the recipe so that it could be added to the book that he was transcribing for her. He fell into his bed glad of it and stretched his feet out in a pair of thick wool socks that one of the old spinsters that he tended had made him that were the best thing ever.

He was warm and comfortable and listening to Harli snore as he fell asleep when the thumping came on the door.

For the most part, no one bothered him when he was in his chambers, and those that did pulled the cord at the church door that rang a small bell to wake him like Erica did when she came to fetch him. Samwise had a bench in the church with a brazier and a blanket so no one would attack Stiles- although Stiles suspected he used one of the empty medical beds when no one was there to correct him about it. Boyd was the only person that Samwise let past him and if it wasn't Samwise banging on the door it was Sir Boyd.

“You are requested," he said, and fully expected Stiles to dress whilst he was talking because he didn't want to wait. Harli lumbered over, smacking her mouth a few times, and then rubbing against his leg looking for affection and what surprised Stiles was Boyd squatted down to rub her head and ear and tell her what a good girl she was.

Stiles dressed quickly, pulling a wool cap over his hair, which needed to be washed, and then picked up the pouch that he kept his knitting in and tied it to his belt. He had a cabinet with a lock in which he kept his satchel and his mother’s ring.

The clan's lord, and Stiles was yet to learn his actual given name- he was Lord Hale and that was it although the clan was rather informal, certainly in comparison to Stiles’ father’s court, he was still his lordship or Himself, was sat in front of the fire nursing a cup of wine. He had his leg elevated and sat on a wheat pillow exactly like the one Stiles was given for his courses.

Boyd rolled his shoulders and then went through a small door between the hangings, which he left open. Harli trotted in after him.

“I think my friend has stolen your dog," his lordship said from his chair, there was a deerskin that was draped over the chair which had leather padding and was finer than anything else.

“I think in fact she has stolen him, she is a terrible thief of hearts, she decides that she likes a person that is it, they are her favorite person until another favorite appears at which point she gets confused and has to lie down."

Lord Hale chuckled into his wine. “Have you eaten?” he asked, gesturing to a table with a motion of his head, “there is food, I have no appetite but Boyd insists on leaving the food in case I change my mind.” The table was lightly laden with fresh bread, cheese and cold sliced meats and pickles, and a bowl of washed and dried seaweed. There was also two more, unopened, bottles of wine, sealed with oak bungs and wax. “Help yourself, it's better eaten than gone to waste, although I think your dog might like me better if I share with her.”

“It wouldn't take that much, but you must be careful,” Stiles said sagely, “or she’ll eat all the cheese and spend the night farting," Stiles wanted to make Lord Hale laugh, he looked like he carried all of the sorrows of the world on his shoulders and when he laughed it looked for a moment that he lightened and if he was handsome before, with the melancholia weighing him down, he was beautiful when he smiled. “And she's terrible for drinking all the wine.” Lord Hale barked out a laugh. “You can't take her anywhere.”

“She’s a fine looking animal," Lord Hale said, rubbing at his thigh through the fabric of his kilt.

“It pains you, doesn’t it?” Stiles asked, “I have some salve," he said, “it might help.”

"Mistress McCall brought me some, she said that you had made it," Lord Hale spoke quietly and carefully as if he was unused to speaking and his throat was rusty with disuse. “She is attentive to her patients.”

“Not so much to her assistants," Stiles griped, because it was true that Mistress McCall was nothing but kindness to those under her care, unfortunately she clearly used all that she had for her patients because she had no patience left for Heather and Stiles, and Harli was considered a great lump that was moved out of her way with a foot.

“I think they learn it at Salerno," Lord Hale said, “for every doctor there was the same, apart from the single one who believed I had become wounded just to offend him, and all illness was sent by Satan just to annoy him personally.”

Stiles laughed then and felt Lord Hale’s gaze clear upon him as if he was something laid out in one of Mistress McCall's books to be examined or studied, as if Lord Hale was surprised that someone might laugh at something that he had said.

“Clearly he was the one that taught Mistress McCall," Stiles said, “or she taught him, definitely one of the two,” Lord Hale almost smiled, Stiles saw it in his eyes but he quickly tamped it down, “but she lets me learn, rather than just leaving me with Bigby's books, most of which are nonsense,” he reached up and scratched at his head, “he has this idea that if you consume sulphur it will cure bloating, which I’m sure it will, but I’m also sure it will kill you, so,” he paused for breath, “and Mistress McCall's books are much better, they suggest chewing peppermint, or if you can oil of peppermint with how to extract it from the plant using an alembic, and there is one in the infirmary and I’m not sure why she doesn't live there instead of me.”

“You talk a lot,” Lord Hale said.

“It’s a character failing," Stiles agreed, “it’s like there are a hundred hundred words and they all try to fall over themselves to try and get out of my mouth, I am hardly ever quiet, I think that’s why my best friend is a dog, she doesn't butt in when I’m talking, and she at least pretends to listen.” He had nearly blurted out that it was one of the things that had made him unattractive as an omega, but Lord Hale didn’t know, he was sure that Peter had said that he had no need to tell his nephew so he had not bothered, and the fewer people who knew the secret the easier it would be to keep.

“Boyd is little given to speaking," Lord Hale said, awkward with maintaining the conversation. “We often sit in silence for neither of us has anything to say.”

“I am physically incapable,” Stiles continued, “I talk all the time, I’m sure if you asked her Harli would say that I talk in my sleep, I toss and turn too, it's like I’m running news to the king of Marathon, Harli has to pin me down or I disturb her beauty sleep.”

“I dislike the winter nights," Lord Hale said, deciding to ignore Stiles inadvertent intimacy, “the quiet closes in and the snow damps those sounds from the gorse,” he gestured to a pillow upon an old milking stool beside the fire, “will you sing for me again?” He looked vulnerable as he spoke like he was a child fearing correction and not the lord of all that he watched through his glass window. “When you sang before I did not know what you were singing, do you know any songs in Scots?”

“Isn't this Isaac’s role?” Stiles asked because he should have been chaperoned but Samwise could not burst in to sit there without explanation and that explanation was something that Lord Hale did not know and he could overrule Peter and send Stiles back to be married to Ennis, if Ennis would even have him. “I mean he sings in the main hall when there is a drink to be had,”

“I don't want him to sing for me," Lord Hale said, “I want you to.”

A weird sensation crossed Stiles’ mood, something like a lump formed in his throat, as if he had swallowed a boiled egg whole, which he had only done once, Lord Hale wanted Stiles to sing for him, Stiles, whose voice was fair but not exceptional, certainly not in comparison to Isaac. It might be nothing, he wondered, after all, Isaac might be as pissy at being roused from his bed as Mistress McCall, or his throat might be sore from singing in the main hall, or Lord Hale had already heard all of the songs that Isaac knew. Lord Hale had been to the Holy Land, he had seen most of the known world in his travels, if Isaac was clan born and raised then he would know very few songs, that was it, Stiles decided, it was that simple, Stiles knew songs that Isaac did not.

Beside the stool was a small citole, older and more battered than the one that Isaac used, perhaps at some point this had been his instrument and he had been given a newer finer instrument for his service. Stiles checked the tuning and found it was set for him to play.

He sat on the stool, tucked his legs to the side demurely, some lessons were hard set he found, and played a few bars as he decided what to sing, he didn't know many songs, and few that he could translate there to sing in Scots for him, for it meant taking them from the language he had learned them from, into English which was his own natural language and then into Scots.

Taking a moment he made his decision and started to sing. 

_“The hay hung low_  
_where the road leads I will go_  
_and it's a hard and a crooked life_  
_when you're a dead man's unwedded bride.”_

He looked across at Lord Hale who had rested his head back against the deer hide on his chair and closed his eyes to listen, his hands folded in his lap. Stiles just let his fingers find the tune. It was a song that Matilda had despised that he had learned, a thing sung by his oldest brothers when they walked along the family corridors drunk and raucous.  
_“The hay moves slow_  
_where the road leads no one knows_  
_and it's a hard and a crooked life_  
_when you're a dead man's unwedded bride.”_  
It was a song he was surprised that he remembered so well. He supposed it was the memory of Matilda clapping her hands over Stiles’ ears that made him listen so closely, he didn't know why he had chosen it, but it was as if the song had found itself in the lump in his throat that rose when Lord Hale asked him to sing.  
_“Down by the road sits a man_  
_who's gray and old_  
_says the hardest thing I know_  
_is to see your loved ones go.”_  
The fire was crackling and spitting in the grate, the wood splitting and the salt inside it popping. The room smelled sweet of cherry from the smoke, and Lord Hale looked peaceful, lips slightly parted and head tilted back as he listened. He looked lonely and lost and as if the only thing that mattered to him in the moment was the song that Stiles sang, so Stiles continued to sing.  
_“Down goes the road_  
_where the wildflowers grow_  
_there's a lake that's dark deep and cold_  
_there I shall lay my bones.”_

Stiles could hear Boyd fussing about in the antechamber, he could feel the cold on his left contrasted to the fire at his right with its heat, and the light was dancing across the fabric of Lord Hale's dark green pourpoint jacket, the quilting casting shadows across his chest and arm, and the bright brass buttons like little stars on the dark fabric. His hands were large knuckled and his nails neatly trimmed, without the usual line of dirt that alphas had from poor hygiene and hard work.  
_“Down down I go_  
_gonna lay my bruised bones_  
_and the hardest thing they'll know_  
_just let go_  
_just let me go.”_  
And as Stiles finished the song, letting his fingers find the strings and brought the notes to a close, by placing his hand flat over them. He felt overwhelmed as if he had been someone else before he had sung, “can I still have a glass of that wine?” he asked.  
“Certainly, my angel," Lord Hale said and with his head cast back and his eyes closed he didn't see the expression on Stiles' face at him saying his name.


	13. Chapter 13

With Peter away, Stiles had a few hours between Mistress McCall releasing him when the daylight was too poor to continue transcription and supper in the kitchen with Rachel before she went to bed. He used those hours, in front of the fire in his infirmary quarters, knitting and it allowed the stocking to finally start to grow, almost to the point that he was considering turning the heel. The wool was scratchy but it left his hands so soft because of the natural oils. Most of the treatment of wool by the spinsters was removing those oils to make the wool take dye better but there was no need to do that for these stockings. He had a jar of the fleece oil, called lanolin, amidst the oils and things in the infirmary but none of Mistress McCall's recipes used it so he had no idea what to do with it. He chattered as he worked to Erica who was clearly not listening as she brushed sand and dried soap through the dried furs from the rabbits that she had caught.

On one day she took Stiles foraging in the half-light between Nones and Vespers and had him carrying her basket as Harli loped along with them sniffing at everything and then looking back to Stiles to make sure he was paying attention as Erica found mushrooms and other plants that were at their best in the early winter.

It had turned cold enough that Stiles found himself stamping his feet in his boots to make sure that the heat traveled down there, and had his hood up over his wool cap. He had his hands in his gloves and stuffed into the folds of his cloak, and spent the entire expedition complaining about the cold. Prompting Erica to complain that Stiles was as useless as an omega and it worked better if she put saddle bags on Harli so she could do the lifting because she certainly didn’t complain nearly as much. Harli, hearing her name, turned and revealed she had found what looked like a dead squirrel and was carrying it in her mouth as carefully as she could, clearly delighted with what she had found.

“Your dog is broken,” Erica repeated as Harli dropped the squirrel carcass at her feet to show her how good a hunter she was. Erica had eschewed the skirts that Rachel kept trying to put her in and was wearing thick wool pants and a jerkin, with two satchels across her chest, her yew bow and quiver were on her hip, which her cloak was tucked back behind so they were easily accessed if she saw something that she wished to shoot as she had permission to hunt on the Hale lands so wasn’t poaching, Harli with her dead squirrel was.

Erica, who was under instruction from Mistress McCall, named the plants that she was foraging for as she put them into Stiles’ basket, including those that were simply edible as opposed to medicinal.

That evening they had freshly caught quail stuffed with wild mushrooms for supper, freshly roasted for them by Rachel who was glad to let them share in the fruits of their labours as Stiles regaled her with the tales of Harli's epic hunt, and how no matter how many times Erica threw the carcass away into the coppice around the Kynsloch Harli went and fetched it back deciding that it was a game and the best fun she’d had in some time.

Two of the birds and the lion's share of the mushrooms went to Lord Hale with the knowledge that Stiles had been part of foraging for the meal, and Rachel invited them to remain in the kitchens whilst they were shut down for the evening, a task that took several hours, rather than going back to the infirmary where they had set a small fire to be warm when they went back, but would still be cold from being empty for more than twelve hours.

The kitchen girls were as wicked in their humor as the spinsters and teased each other and Stiles mercilessly as they worked, Stiles sitting by the fire and working at his knitting which he carried in a pouch at his waist in case he got the opportunity to put a few more rounds in.

“Making stockings for your darling?” Geilis, who had bronze red hair and a complexion as red as a brick from the heat of the kitchens, her hands becoming as worn with skin like parchment as Rachel’s, “is there something we should know, perhaps a handfasting for the spring?” She was sat on one of the spit stools, small three-legged stools that the spit boys, boys who turned the spits and basted the meat, sat on, with a skewer in a bucket of hot water trying to get the old meat and grease from the metal with a piece of burlap and wood ash, which with the grease from the meat turned into a type of soap.

“Does Heather know?” Isabel, a blonde kitchen girl whose defining feature was that she was almost obscenely thin, no matter how much she ate - and she ate like a teenaged alpha boy - asked.

“Why would Heather need stockings?” Stiles asked, “she’s more than capable of knitting her own.”

“They’re for his Lordship," Erica said in a sing-song, happy to be involved in the mockery, “he spends most evenings there, with his lordship, and he’s making him a pair of stockings.”

“We’ve all made his Lordship something or other," Geilis said, and there was something of a conspiracy in her tone as if Stiles might tell her more if she shared his misery. “Dana, you made him a handkerchief with his initials didn't you?” she asked.

“It’s medical," Stiles protested, although there was perhaps a little too much vehemence in his argument, “it's to help with his pain,” he continued.

“That’s what he keeps saying,” Erica said with a grin, “but he also says that he begrudges those night visits.”

“I’m not getting near enough sleep," Stiles protested. “He’s like a bat, he’s like a half man half bat, a batman, he only comes out at night, and he lurks.”

The kitchen girls didn't seem impressed by his argument. “We believe you," Isobel said, “many in the keep wouldn’t, but we believe you." It was entirely clear from their sing-song tone that they absolutely did not believe him.

“He’s so handsome,” Erica said in the same teasing tone, mocking Stiles who had absolutely not said that, and if he had it wouldn’t have been to her.

“Heather will be heartbroken," Geilis said, “she might be a little sweet on you, and you have an eye for the alphas,” this was said with a leer, “but the kilts of the clansmen really do show off their calves,” that was conspiratorial, “and none has a finer pair of calves than Sir Boyd.”

“You girls aren't here to gossip," Rachel said, dropping a wooden spoon onto the table with a loud clack, “and if I hear you've been carrying tales,” she left the threat hanging as both the girls who had been teasing and the others in the kitchens dropped their heads to continue their work. “Never you mind them, lamb," she said, "I’m sure his lordship will be delighted with your token.” And the girls laughed because Rachel might have been old and ran the kitchen like a military campaign but she could tease with the best of them. She didn't point out the way Stiles was blushing, his face as red as Geilis’ and his gaze on his knees because he couldn't meet anyone's gaze with embarrassment.

He was still in the kitchens when Boyd came to fetch him, with the kitchen girls and the spit boy, mildly teased him as they left which Boyd questioned with an eyebrow but nothing more. “They like you," Stiles said, “They’ve been talking about you all evening.” Boyd cocked his head like it was his due but that Stiles was beneath his conversation.

“Mistress McCall said I was to fetch you," Boyd said as if the very idea was against his better judgment. “The weather is turning fast,” he continued, “and that makes the pain worse, she has given him milk of the poppy," it must have been extreme, Stiles thought if she had given him from her tightly stored stores of opium. She had told Stiles and Heather that although it was incredibly useful it was also incredibly dangerous and that although she trusted them with almost all of her stores that would remain locked and if she agreed with their assessment that it was necessary, with the implication that she would not, that she would be the one to administer it. “He’s a little loopy," Boyd continued. “He is not to have wine, no matter how he asks for it, there is raspberry vinegar he can have with water,” he turned on his way to look Stiles clear in the eye, “no matter how much he asks, demands or wheedles, do I make myself clear, boy?” There was a threat there, Boyd and Derek shared a bond that meant Boyd was willing to threaten Stiles for him.

—-

  
The Hale Lord’s rooms were brightly lit, with lamps and candles spread around the room, reflecting off polished copper plates and forming a sort of crust around the glass in the window through the crack in the curtains.

Lord Hale himself was sat in a large tin bath in front of the fire which had been brought up to a blaze so that the room was warm enough even for Stiles. Lord Hale was, as could be expected, completely naked, his wet hair was slicked back and his head was resting on a velvet pillow that was just out of the steaming water. The water was thick with seaweed to help with his pain, so although the water was hot it was probably also full of salt. When Stiles had been being dressed for court it had always involved a seaweed bath to enhance his beauty, so he was not so baffled by a seaweed bath as some might.

“My Lord," Stiles said as Harli moved towards the fire, and settled down with a few loud smacks of her mouth. Stiles found his eyes going everywhere but at the lord in his bath, which of course meant that he could not take his eyes off him. He was beautiful, muscular without being overwhelming, with his thighs spread against the outer edges of the bath, and his feet hanging over lip towards the fire, “you should be careful, Harli is known for her taste of feet, she is something of a licker.” In his bath the Lord laughed, a deep chuckle but his eyes remained closed and his head thrown back against the pillow, and Stiles smiled despite himself, aware that the Lord could not see it. “It’s a rather bizarre experience, having a large dog lick your feet, she also does it with my trouser legs, I’m not sure she doesn't think she’s my mother and that I need the grooming.”

“Does she try to feed you also?” The lord asked.

“She brought Erica a dead squirrel,” Stiles put his satchel down on the table and pulled out the jar of muscle salve, because if he looked at that it was not the naked man in the bath. “Erica thinks that as a dog she is broken.”

When the lord spoke he was careful of his syllables, taking extra care that the words came out of his mouth right, which was not surprising if Mistress McCall had given him milk of poppy. Stiles’ purpose was probably to make sure he got out of the bath, strapped up his leg and then got into bed. He was going to sleep like a dead thing when it kicked in. Stiles had broken his arm as a child and had been given milk of poppy and he had slept through the first week of the healing process but his doctor had been much more generous with it than Mistress McCall. It had been one of the few times he remembered his father, the king, sitting over him for fear he might die, his mother’s loyal guard, Sir Noah, had not left him for the entire process, but it had been close after his mother’s death. It had been out of a way to express how he felt after the loss of his mother that had put him in the situation where he had broken his arm in the first place. “Erica never liked hunting with dogs.”

“I think Erica just doesn't like anything, really," Stiles continued, pouring his lordship out a glass of the raspberry vinegar and topping it up with water, before bringing it to the table next to the bath so his lordship could reach it without moving too much. “She seems to take that out on small animals, it's quite disturbing to watch her skin a rabbit, it’s an act of wrath, she does it with a jerk that should pop her arm right out.”

The lord chuckled, and then stood up, which caused Stiles to turn around so quickly he lost his balance and had to put his hand down on the table to steady himself. This caused the lord to laugh loud and long, “aren't we both men here?” he asked.

Stiles answer was garbled as the words fell over each other, because in that simple harmless gesture he had been ruined, well, just walking into the room with a naked man had ruined him, but he had to remind himself that it didn’t matter any more. He was never going to marry, he was no longer a trinket that his father could use to buy influence or power, he was going to be a doctor, and he would grow old here, serving this man, so it didn’t matter that he ruined him. Perhaps he should turn to look, he was a doctor, he told himself, he shouldn't be embarrassed by a naked man.

By the time he had turned the Lord had wrapped a sheet around his waist and used the table to hobble his way to his chair. “You, sir," Stiles said brusquely, which was entirely to cover up the fact that he was embarrassed, “are going to need a brace, do you want to go to the farrier or have him come to you?”

“Am I a horse to be saddled?” there was anger in his tone now.

“Are you embarrassed that you need help?” Stiles uncorked the muscle rub, so the air was suddenly sweet with the smell of peppermint, “that something bad happened to you and now you need assistance that you didn't before?”

“Who are you to speak to me like that?” The milk of the poppy was not making him sweet in his temperament, pain and the drug made him argumentative.

“You do not scare me," Stiles protested although it was a lie, “if you want to suffer why send for me almost nightly so I can prepare your leg that you might go to bed to the point I am almost part of your toilet.” He could be bitchy too, and his lordship was being bitchy because he hurt. Stiles could understand that. Harli had raised her head to watch the interaction. “But if you do not care for the way that I speak to you then I shall certainly arrange that Heather manages your care in my stead, for she is certainly as skilled, if not more so, than I.”

Lord Hale, unable to control the expressions that crossed his face, pouted. Everything he did was exaggerated by the milk of poppy. “Then you need a brace,” Stiles softened his tone as he rubbed the unguent onto his hands, “you can't go on like this," taking a deep breath he laid his hands on his lordship’s thigh which was hot and firm and twitching under his palms, before he began to massage the muscle the way that Mistress McCall had shown him. “It pains me to see you suffer so.”

Lord Hale reached out and with his finger tipped up Stiles face to look at him, “you are so kind,” he said, “your heart is as vast as the very sky.”

Stiles laughed, “I am not so kind," he said, “there are some I would see suffer," he left it open, “but you are not among them," his hands knew what they were doing even if Stiles had no idea what it was that his mouth was doing, it was forming words, “my lord.”

“Derek,” the Hale lord corrected, “my name is Derek, you can call me that, surely we have such intimacy between us now, you almost have your face in my crotch and I thought it would be Harli that would be forward in her advances,” the smirk on his face should not be as lovely as Stiles found it, perhaps the kitchen girls were right and he was smitten. It didn’t matter, nothing could come of it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harli brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like, she's a better dog than yours, damn right she's better than yours, she'd teach you but she's too busy being fabulous

Boyd came to fetch Stiles the next day whilst he was with Mistress McCall because Lord Hale had taken his advice to go to the farrier to be fitted for a brace. Mistress McCall seemed impressed by this because she had been trying for several months to get him to accept, so whatever it was that Stiles had said that worked required some reaction, even if it was just a quirked eyebrow.

Stiles sprinkled sand over the page he was working with, before closing the book with a piece of linen between the sheets so that they would not stain, before putting the book back on the shelf, as he was adding detail to an existing volume, and pulled a cloak on over his hood to go back into the winter cold. There was a fine mizzling rain, where it was not heavy enough to even be drizzle but the air was full of tiny dots of water that served to soak any fabric that passed through it. It did not seem to bother Boyd who had not even bothered with an oiled cloak although his shaved head glistened with moisture.

Heather had a half smile and cocked her shoulder in a way that suggested that she wanted to say something and if he returned that day without Boyd then she certainly would.

Normally when Stiles went to see Lord Hale, Derek, he had washed up after supper, his face was clean and his hands wiped free of ink, then he put a little wool oil on his hands to soften them, because it was important, Mistress McCall maintained, for a doctor to have soft hands so that they could feel problems that the patient might not want to complain of. When Stiles retired for the night his hands were still slick from the balm he had rubbed into Derek's thigh, and he told himself that was why they still felt hot.

He followed Boyd into the street, Harli whining beside him at the mud between the pads of her feet, she had not wanted to go on her run today instead choosing the plan of lying in front of Mistress McCall’s fire worrying a wooden ball she had liberated from somewhere. Mistress McCall had come to terms with the fact that Harli came with Stiles, whether she was welcome or not.

There was a wicked wind that curled down the curved street from the castle and seemed determined to find the chinks where his cloak didn't cover him completely and the cobbles, laid on the street, and they felt colder than usual under the soles of his boots, but Boyd was bare-armed against the onset of winter as if it did not bother him at all or he did not feel it. Stiles wanted to pull his cap further down over his ears this time to keep his head warm instead of just covering the points of his ears.

The farrier’s house was at the bottom of the hill nearer the Kynsloch, there was a tanner and the smell of it hit Stiles like a punch, the heat from the blacksmith was almost blown away by the funk of it which settled around the buildings like a fog. He hurried into the farrier's workshop after Boyd and nestled up next to the fire, for once as eager to make it’s acquaintance as Harli was.

Lord Hale, Derek, was sat on a stool with his leg stretched out in front of him as the farrier measured him for his brace with a length of woven cord upon which he had marks. Harli, acting entirely out of her nature when a fire was involved, picked up a strap of left over leather and started butting at Boyd's hand indicating that she wanted to play.

“Harli," Stiles admonished and hearing her name she turned her attention to him and brought over the scrap of leather, which Stiles grabbed the other end of. This turned out to be a miscalculation because Harli had no intention of relinquishing her prize and instead tugged at the leather forcing Stiles to pull it back. This quickly turned into a game where she tried to pull the strap from him and he was trying his best to get it off her before the farrier noticed she was wasting his good leather.

Harli growled at him deep in her throat, the way that she always did when she was playing this kind of game with Stiles, which they had used an old badly woven strap for back in his father’s castle, and Stiles growled back.

When Derek laughed Stiles dropped the strap in surprise, Harli not sure what had caused her success started to bounce on her front paws, trying to encourage Stiles to pick the end back up. Stiles couldn't quite get over how lovely Derek looked when he laughed, it was a low chuckle but his entire face seemed transformed without the usual sadness that overwhelmed him. It was as if he hadn’t seen how awful that the sadness was until he saw Derek laugh.

Seeing that she wasn't in trouble Harli tried pushed the leather strap into Stiles’ hand with her muzzle, rubbing it against his hand like a cat. “She wants to play," Derek said.

“She didn't want to go out with the other dogs today," Stiles said, trying to bat her away, so she was behind him, although she was still bouncing and had started to whine, “she has a bit more energy than usual.” Seeing that Stiles’ hands were open Harli put the strap directly in his hand.

“Do you think?” Derek began, “it doesn't matter.” He threw the idea aside. “Play with her, I don't mind.”

“The leather’s just a scrap, lad," the farrier said, “it doesn't matter, I would have just used it for patches, it’s already ruined.” They were trying to make it better because Stiles was clearly worried that Harli was going to be punished for ruining the leather, and as soon as she slobbered all over the raw leather it was ruined. “Besides, his lordship could do with the distraction.”

“Do you want to?” Stiles moved aside, still holding the strap but Harli took the opportunity to tug it out of his hands and then barked at him encouraging him to play.

“Why don't you take her outside, lad,” the farrier said, “into the yard, give her a bit of a run around, we can see you from here, but I need to ask you, as the wise woman who is treating him,” Stiles eyebrows knitted at the mention of him being a wise woman, but the farrier didn't notice, “some quick questions about the kind of brace he needs.” Suddenly Stiles wished that he were in trouble for Harli ruining the leather.

Derek took the strap from Harli as Stiles explained to the farrier what was necessary, where Lord Hale needed more support and how it needed to be loose enough he could wear it over a stocking, which would prevent the leather rubbing sores, but stiff enough it would support the muscle and the knee, and even making an attempt to cover for the deficit. The farrier wanted to make it clear that he could create a brace that could be worn all hours of the day but Stiles believed that that would be detrimental, that he should only wear it when it was necessary and so they called in the blacksmith, who was called Wee Sam, because he was the youngest of the Sam’s but also the physically largest, to talk about making support straps of iron to support the thigh, which could be useful if he wasn't wearing the brace all day and night. Stiles was of the opinion that stiffened leather could do the job if it was stuffed with fleece but the farrier thought that it would be lighter if they used thin iron strips.

Sitting on the stool and pretending not to listen to them Derek allowed Harli to pull him forward and she let him pull him back and growled at him as they played their game of tugs. There were sketches made on the surface of the farrier's worktable with a charcoal wand, and then Harli was shooed out of the way so that they could make measurements, although she did not let go, just moved around to the side. “Give over, lass,” Wee Sam said, trying to move her with his hip but she did not want to move, instead she let go of the strap to bark at him for interrupting her play. Harli had always been a bit possessive of play time. Wee Sam did not blanch at the prospect of a large dog barking at him, and Harli was large, broad across the chest with a head the size of an ale cask.

Word of Stiles’ “broken” dog had already spread around the castle, and rather than back down from Harli voicing her displeasure he reached into the pouch on his waist band and pulled out a piece of dried meat wrapped in cloth, and threw it to her. This turned her from annoyed at being disturbed from a game she was clearly enjoying greatly to immediately infatuated with Wee Sam, or anyone who gave her strips of dried mutton. Harli was fickle like that.

“I’ll take her into the yard," Stiles said, “I’ll keep her busy, but you can just call me in if you need me.”

“The instructions are clear ‘nough,” the farrier told him, “we should have no trouble from here. “There’s some horns there,” he gestured to a pile of old antlers stacked in a corner, “if she’s needing something to chew on.”

Stiles thanked him and told him that he would take one when they were done, but, for now, she just wanted to play at tugs and that he would remain in sight. He had no intention of being in the room as they tried out straps, marking out the places where the buckles would fasten, how long things needed to be although it would take some time to actually make the brace.

He was acutely aware that he was being watched. It seemed that when Derek looked at him he could feel his gaze as if it was a living thing, but he did not feel like a mouse frozen in place by an adder. It felt warm and inviting as if Derek saw something in him that was precious and special.

It was such a pity that nothing could come of it.

It did not matter. Harli was hopping about trying to get him to grab the leather strap but dancing back out of his grasp as she played her favourite game of “no take, only play” and in the farrier Stiles could hear people laugh at her antics, how she dropped her head down between her feet and waggled her ass to try as she enjoyed herself, playing like a puppy though she certainly was not one, being as large as a small cow.

Harli had been bred to run alongside men on horseback for miles to hunt down prey. Size and ferocity had been carefully coddled in her bloodline so that she and her littermates could take down wolves, bears, and boars. Harli had been a disappointment because she was clearly not a hunting dog, perhaps Erica was right and she was broken, but it didn't matter, when, with a jerk she pulled Stiles off his feet and down to his knees on the frozen mud and licking his face to reassure him that she loved him and everyone in the warmth of the farriers watched them play through the open door and laughed loud and long at her antics.


	15. Chapter 15

Despite the interlude in the farrier's, it was not Lord Hale that requested Stiles’ present that night, but instead Madame Blake. Stiles knew almost nothing about the woman, there were rumours, any place where people gathered guaranteed the presence of rumours, some salacious, some tragic, about any person, especially one who kept themselves aloof from the rest of the populace, but other than those gossipy rumours that she sustained her youth by working for the local faeries through some dark magicks Stiles knew nothing about her.

She had a small suite of rooms, smaller than those Derek shared with Boyd but larger than the ones Peter kept for himself, with a large wooden bed that dominated the room and two couches in front of a large fireplace. It was larger than the guest room that Stiles had borrowed when he first came to Faoilleach but it was not so fine that it was immediately out of place that she should have it. The women's quarters were above the kitchen, a dormitory of raised wooden boxes and fresh straw mattresses, changed weekly, with warm blankets, Stiles had seen it only as part of his duties as Mistress McCall’s assistant. That she had not been given a place there, where the unmarried women who lived the castle slept, suggested she had some sort of seniority but the only woman who should have rooms of her own was the laird’s wife and Derek was defiantly unmarried, Peter was widowed and disliked the idea of anyone marrying his nephew he had not first approved of and checked the pedigree of and defeated him in armed combat. Peter was rather protective of Derek, but considering the losses the Hale family had gone through Stiles was not unsurprised by this.

Madame Blake’s chambers were well worn, there was evidence of wealth but, like the woman herself, it showed signs of age and use. There was a loom against the window but the heddle appeared to be dusty and the work had not been picked up in some time, suggesting the fabric had belonged to the previous inhabitant of the room, either a daughter of the Hale’s or Peter’s departed wife, Livia.

“Ah, young master Stiles,” Jennifer said, standing up in front of the fire and welcoming him in, “I’m so glad you could come.”

“You requested my presence,” he said, wondering what was wrong that this woman, who kept to herself and apparently trusted her health to her own knowledge of medicine, rather than trusting, what she had been said to call Mistress McCall, some peasant woman with a sweet smelling garden. “What appears to be the matter?”

“Oh come now," she said with a saccharine smile, “come sit, take some wine, you have been here these past weeks and yet we have not had chance to converse, Hale,” she was referring to Peter, Derek was always referred to in conversation as himself or his lordship, “has kept you all to himself, and then selling you to that McCall woman, I can not imagine how stifled you must be without conversation with Hale in Glasgow, but this is the first chance I have had to invite you.”

Stiles felt very much like a rat in a trap as she spoke. Madame Blake had an almost birdlike and delicate beauty, with dark hair that she wore in two braids, coiled over the ear in a loop and caught in a leather diadem set with semi-precious stones over her forehead. She wore a little kohl, imported at great cost from distant Araby Stiles knew for he had had a pot himself, around her eyes, and some rouge on her lips, but instead of enhancing her beauty it just made her look tired and a little wan. It was likely that sunlight and a little exercise would do more for her complexion than all the unguents and oils that she used, and she veritably stank of oil of rose geranium.

She wore a velvet dress with embroidered inlays at the elbows and trimmed in real gold thread but the cuffs looked a little threadbare and the neckline had been adjusted, and poorly, the stitches ugly and large. Her leather slippers poked out from under the uneven hem of her gown and judging by the fineness of the embroidery the dress had been adjusted, wear taken from the dress with careful snips but ruined by ugly stitching. Before it had been the sort of dress that Stiles would have worn as an omega but Madame Blake was not an omega, so it meant two things, her family had supplied her with finery above her station suggesting that they were very wealthy, or she had inherited, or taken, clothes from the Hale stores.

Her time indoors had given her skin a somewhat grey tint, and her hair was finely polished and oiled, as were her nails, but she looked like she was the victim of a long, mild illness as pervasive and debilitating as Derek's melancholia.

He could not say that he liked her, something about her struck him as wrong but he could not have told anyone what it was, Harli had elected to stay with Erica as the afternoon’s mild drizzle had turned into an early winter storm, with winds whipping ice cold rain into flying razor blades in the dark, and the wind was wuthering in the nooks and crannies of the keep. It made the castle feel damp and colder than usual, and Madame Blake's fire did little to take that feeling from the air.

“You and I, Stiles, are strangers in this place, I came here as a girl, younger even than you are now, to marry the oldest Hale alpha, my dear Thomas.” She pressed an embroidered kerchief to her eyes in what Stiles immediately considered the most fake show of grief he’d seen in his short life, and he had lived in the court of a powerful king, people had feigned grief to gain influence as a way of currency there and still she struck him as being overwhelmingly fake. It did not endear her to him.

“You see, dear boy," calling him that also did not ingratiate her to him, “I came as a bride, too young for the marriage to be consummated but to secure a deal with my parents, they were merchants,” she patted her eyes again, Stiles was not moved. “I was so lost, this castle was so dark and imposing and the people who lived here were unkind,” that was the total opposite, Stiles thought, of his own experience. “All I had was my dear Thomas, and with him gone,” she patted her eyes again, “I was scared that you might feel as lost and alone here as I did.”

“I am kept busy,” Stiles said, “I enjoy the work that I do with Mistress McCall and when I am not summoned to deal with ailments in the castle I fall into my bed happily exhausted to sleep through until breakfast.” He was trying to make it obvious, without being rude, that if she did not need him as a medic he wanted to go back to his chambers, his fireplace and the cup of rosehip tea sweetened with honey that he had left. Madame Blake’s maidservant had suggested that it was urgent.

“That is well," Madame Blake said, her hands, which looked much older than her face, clutched in her skirts, “my own story is so sad that I worry that it might be shared." It was an invitation for Stiles to ask her to continue. He did not take the cue. “When I heard that you were educated, that you could read and write I knew that we would be kindred spirits, and that you could speak French, which I have not heard since I was a girl in my alpha father’s home, we had a maid servant who served as my governess, she insisted that I knew how to speak French, insisted that it was a civilised language for use among barbarians.” She smiled to herself and she had a sweet smile.

“I came to this place as a child, a noon bride,” it was an old term that Stiles only half knew, but in noble circles sometimes brides were secured before they were old enough to be bedded, they called them dawn or noon brides for they were not ready to see the night and what it brought, “but my dear Thomas was nothing but kind. I miss him so.”

“I am sorry for your loss," Stiles said because the politesse was ingrained in him.

She thanked him under her breath and with a gesture of her head as the kerchief was pressed to her lips. She would stain it with that fancy rouge, he thought, he still didn't believe an ounce of it. “Thomas was a good man, older than me, brave and shining, I loved him dearly, but his mother did not care for me, and Peter whispered in her ear that I was poison although I was a girl not long out of the nursery, perhaps it was that Thomas chose me himself.”

If Thomas Hale had chosen her, Stiles thought, then it was for the dower she brought with her because she was a beta, so she must have been wealthy indeed that they had not pressed that their heir marry an omega. Omega were rare but he was a laird of a large estate, almost a king, if he agreed to marry a beta then her family was as rich as Croesus and they had sold her in the hope his lineage would breed true and omegas spill from her loins, and Thomas needed the money, which struck Stiles as strange for the Hales did not seem to lack for money.

He made a noise that suggested that he was listening. “With your education then you must understand what it is like to come from civilization to Faoilleach," that at least was true, his father’s court had bustled with people, “but I have spoken only of myself, you must tell me about yourself, dear Stiles.”

“There is not much to tell.” Stiles had worked out the story long before with Peter in case he was pressed, “I was the playmate and whipping boy of an omega prince, and when he married I was without purpose and sent here to train with Mistress McCall to be a doctor, for Faoilleach needs such. I learned sat at his side, treated as a prince in all things except when he needed to be punished, and when he married I was too educated for my station and not rich enough to rise above it.”

It was the story of many young people across the world, omega were too highly prized for their parents to give them a whipping when they had earned one, the way that their alpha and beta siblings would, so another child was found, someone who could share their life and be as dear to them as a twin, but who was punished in their stead. Many of them were cast aside when the omega was sold in marriage, or grandfathered in to the castle’s service, their scarred backs a testament to the service that they performed. Whilst Stiles kept his clothes on the story would not collapse because his back was unmarked, mostly because his nurse had not believed in whipping or any kind of corporal punishment, she had preferred hard work to shape character and kept him too busy to get into mischief, even if that was what she had always called him.

“You are so brave, I understand you came here with nothing but a horse, and your dog, was he a gift from your prince?”

Stiles admitted that he was.

“I have nothing left with which to remember my dear Thomas, not even a lock of his hair, he and his uncle travelled to far Glastonbury and heard of the crusades, I shall bring you back such wealth, he promised, enough to get us out from the thumb of my father, for ours was a love match." Stiles barely knew the Hales, only these few weeks acquaintance but he was pretty certain that if Thomas had married Madame Blake in a love match he would make the effort to stomach her company instead of the open disdain he showed her. “Lady Hale only allowed them to go for she believed, misguided by her treacherous brother,” it was clear that Peter’s disdain of Madame Blake was mutual, “that they would only travel as far as Avignon, that they would see the church and return but my dear Thomas wanted so badly to be a husband rich enough to release me from my bondage to my father so they continued on.” Stiles did not know why she was telling him this. She had a cup of wine that she wet her lips with for she certainly did not take enough to swallow.

“Then as I waited for my dear Thomas to return my parents were killed in a shipwreck, I was a noon bride held on the sufferance of Lady Hale whilst my husband, for he insisted that we wait until I was older though I was seventeen, four years older than Lord Derek, although he was the infant of the family, I was without influence or wealth, with only what I had brought with me, waiting for my dear Thomas to return whilst his family did not care for me. My father was a trader in almonds and sugar, bringing them from Aragon to the lords of England," that would explain the wealth, Stiles thought, sugar, processed from beets, would have a high value as rare and expensive as it was, and almonds were a rare treat when he had been a boy, although they travelled well. “So I tried to buy Lady Hale's affection with marchpane, for her sweet tooth was something of a legend about the city. How heartbroken we both were when word came from Salerno of our loss, how we had lost both my dear Thomas and his brothers and sisters, and Lord Derek lay fevered and injured in Salerno, Lady Hale whose health had been failing as long as I knew her, feel into a deep fever from which she did not awaken. I fell upon the cold mercy of Lord Peter.”

She pressed the kerchief to her eyes again, as she told the story of her woe, which Stiles did not believe, well that was not quite true, he believed that some of the details were true, possibly most of it had happened the way that she said - that it affected her did not ring true.

A noon bride who had lost her husband before consummation regained her maiden's status and she had become too old to easily catch a wealthy husband and too poor to make that irrelevant. The best option that she had was convincing either the Hales to keep her, which it seemed that they did out of guilt, or the church, and she didn't have the money to buy herself a cot in a nunnery.

"Lord Peter let me stay, unsure if his nephew would take me as a bride to replace my dear Thomas, although he is so much younger than I," she pursed her lips, and Stiles became aware of her intent. Stiles was being summoned to Lord Derek's chambers almost nightly, Madame Blake believed that Lord Derek was hers, although he had not shown her any attention at all, even acknowledging her presence, and Madame Blake wanted Stiles to back away from her quarry. It was all Stiles could do not to laugh.

“Having fallen upon the mercy of the Hales," she said, reaching out and grabbing Stiles’ hand, her grip was tight, “I understand how easy it is to want to please, how far one might go out of a sense of obligation.”

“Madame Blake,” Stiles said, “you are labouring under a terrible misconception, I am Lord Derek's doctor," he said it clearly, “he sends for me because he is in pain and I bring him physick, if he feels obligation to you out of shared love for his brother that is between you both, I am a beta," he said, “I cannot give him children or stand beside him at the altar,” and that was the truth of it, something Stiles had chewed over most nights when he returned to his bed with salve still smelling sharp on his hands. “I was told that you needed my aid, if you do not I shall return to my chambers, it is not seemly that a man be alone in your chamber without a chaperone, provision might be made for a chirurgeon, and I will give what aid I can, but in the future I would insist that you send either for Miss Heather or Mistress McCall, I would hate to see you ruined over ill health.”

“I have headaches," she said, “sharp as knives behind my eyes, they upset my stomach and I cannot bear neither light nor sound, my head spins, I do not know what to do other than take to my bed.”

This Stiles knew how to deal with, and opening the box of oils that he kept on a leather strap over his chest he handed her a vial of lavender that he might, in the short term, treat the malady although it would take much more for such pain. He could treat her headaches, her fake grief was beyond his remit as one of Mistress McCall's assistants.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harli wins the competition with Matilda for MVP and a hint of wild plot appears,

Stiles was aware on some level that he was dreaming but it was a distant thought. He was in a dark forest, and the branches scratched at him, it was not the soft edges of Scots pine and spruce but it was the hard edges of chestnut and hazel, and they were pulling at his skin like hooks. He was so cold and he ran to the fire but no matter how far he ran the fire was always so far away.

There was something in the woods behind him, something large and powerful that had a presence that he could not explain. It had the head of a goat but the antlers of a deer and its skin was like polished black leather pulled taut over bones but its hands were human, and it cawed and its scream was like that of a bird, with sharp needle teeth. It stunk of beast and he could feel it’s hunger and its need as it called. There were hands, human hands, hard as steel and they dragged him back and he was hot, so hot as they flung him on the fire for the beast.

He screamed and tried to struggle but the fire felt like needles on his skin, and there was ice above his head and no matter how he struck it it would not break so he burned and froze in equal measure and the beast still approached. Vines were tangled in his legs, and there were hands. He thought he heard Peter speaking but Peter had aided him, why would he throw him to the beast?

Stiles’ fear was a tangible thing, clogging his throat and there was water flowing up his nose so he couldn't breath, or scream and still the beast came closer.

There was something in his mouth, syrupy tart and then the water flooded in, but still, he burned. There were other voices in the distance, Mistress McCall, Heather, another woman he didn't recognise, and the hands on his shoulders were made of wood holding him down. He had to fight because if he didn't he would burn or drown in the endless deeps, so deep he couldn't even see the sun, and he couldn't scream, his throat was raw from screaming and he thought he could taste blood. He called for his Mama and he felt his head pulled into her skirts with her hands in his hair telling him that everything was going to be well.

He finally opened his eyes although the effort to do so hurt, they were crusted and he wanted to wipe at them but he couldn't quite get his arms to work and the light was so bright it burned. He managed to get his head to flop over and there was a woman that he did not know sitting on his chair in front of the fire knitting with several colours of yarn, her fingers deft between the five needles she was using, and the speed of it was amazing to behold. “who?” Stiles’ throat felt rusted with disuse and his lips were cracked and there was a sharp pull when the lip split under the effort.

The woman, who was wearing a thick wool apron dress over a wool kirtle with a square neck, which showed the tied linen shirt underneath it. She had knitted gauntlets around each wrist and a woolen hat hung on a hook beside the fire that was not Stiles’ own, but she had a clean white coif and veil, held in place with a woven band, and her face was freshly washed. She looked like one of the burgher’s wives from his father’s court but he didn’t know her. 

Hearing his voice she lowered her hands, but didn't drop her knitting, and turned towards him. “Oh, you're awake, Melissa said it would be today.”

“Whuh?” he couldn’t quite form the words, his throat was too sore, his nose was blocked, and his eyes were gritty. His ears still felt like he was underwater and his skin felt clammy and almost slimy.

“You were sick, dear,” the woman said patiently, “you gave us all quite a fright," even as she looked at him her hands were working quickly with her knitting and noticing him seeing her she smiled, “I finished your socks, dear," she said, “idle hands make the devil's work, and they were just sitting there.” Stiles wanted to complain but he didn't have the strength. “How much do you remember?”

“I," he remembered going to see Miss Blake, and then letting Harli out for her nightly perambulation, and then, and then, and then. “I don't know,” he said, he couldn't even remember going to bed. His voice felt thick like he was talking through a hank of uncarded fleece.

“I worried this might be a possibility, you were helping young Heather with the postulants,” those were the lepers who lived in one of the old church buildings nearly a day's ride from the clan, they were mostly self-sufficient but they needed supplies and if he had accompanied Heather it would have been purely to observe because Mistress McCall had said that they only had one protective gown, that was heavy oilcloth that went over her own gown and had a hood and there were leather gloves and mask to protect her. Afterward they were hung in heavy medicinal smoke so if Stiles had gone, which he could not remember doing, it would have been to keep her company and out from under Mistress McCall's feet. 

“There has been some sickness among the crofters and you were afflicted,” she finally put down her knitting as the kettle that she had hung on a trivet started to boil, she used the fabric of her skirt to pull it down and pour it into a cup, before she took down a second cup wiping it out with a cloth and taking the honey dipper she put a large amount into the cup and topped it up with hot water and a few crushed leaves before leaving it to cool. “You had a fever, we had to pack you in ice and straw to cool you off, your hound, she saved your life. You collapsed, alone, and if not for her howling like she was facing the devil himself and scratching at the door to the infirmary you might not have been discovered till the morning, we had to stitch your head like a cap.”

“I," Stiles started.

“Shush, lamb," she said softly, then reached across and put her hand with its parchment silk skin on his forehead, “still a little feverish, but the worst is long gone, thank the Heavens.” With her tea made she picked up her knitting again.

“Who?” he managed to say.

“Oh, I’m sorry, ducky,” she said with a smile, “You can call me Mother Demdike,” she said, “I was Peter’s nurse and he asked me to sit with you because you were sick, he was worried almost sick with worry himself.” She had the sort of smile that made him feel safe and cosseted but if she was the woman who had raised Peter Hale there was a steel backbone in her. He might have been weak enough that he couldn't quite lift his head but he wasn't stupid. She didn't take her seat again after she had stood to make the tea but instead went to the door and hollered for Samwise although she called him Sam.

Samwise came down the stairs with a clatter, Harli tracking behind him and when she saw that Stiles was awake damn near knocked Samwise out of the way to go over to him. “Give over,” Mother Demdike said, pushing the dog with her hand, “you can get back into his bed when he’s had a bath and the sheets changed,” Harli was licking at his face as she said this and Stiles just about managed to push her away. 

Mother Demdike was a bustling woman who managed to make her will clear as she did tasks without taking a break from her knitting, carrying the yarn in a pair of pockets hung from her belt, which Stiles suspected she had woven herself using her foot.

Samwise was told to take Stiles, blanket and all, and put him in a large wicker chair that had not been there before, with its curved back and seat, and it's general size, Stiles suspected that it was a knotting chair, and it had clearly been brought down for a purpose. It had a thick cushion of horsehair and blankets draped over the arm and Sam was told to put him in the chair in front of the fire with his head on the side because he didn't really have the strength to sit up. He felt like he had been wrung out and the last vestiges of strength had been slopped on the floor.

Once he was situated, with Mother Demdike urging that care be taken of his head, which once he put his weight upon he could feel was sharp with pain, and the residual pounding might have been more than the lingering illness, Mother Demdike tucked a heavy rug around his knees, and Harli crept over, making herself as small as such a large dog could, and put her head beside him on the seat, whining for him to pay attention to her.

He pulled his hand out from under the rug although the effort cost him and let it sit where she could nuzzle her face against it. “She’s been by your side, day and night, these three days past," Mother Demdike told him as she pushed the tea that she had made him into his hand and pushing Harli out of the way with a practiced ease.

“Three days?” he managed to growl out though it was like speaking through razor blades his throat was so sore.

She nodded, “we were worried silly, my little Peter was beside himself, why even Derek came down to check on you, but we had to bar him entry, what with you being packed in ice at the time.”

“I don't understand,” he managed to say.

“Drink your tea, ducky, it will ease your throat,” the tea smelled strong enough of aniseed that he could smell it even through the congestion, “you drink that all up, and we’ll change your sheets and get you in the bath and you’ll feel like a new man.”

Stiles started to protest but she silenced him with a look full of ancient wisdom, “oh I know all about it," she said, with a pause that suggested she did know all about it, and that she had opinions on it. He knew the look well from Matilda. “Hyssop has a strong taste but between that and some bone broth we’ll have you up and running, as bright and bushy tailed as your Harli.”

With the cup feeling as if it weighed as much as the castle Stiles drank the tea. It was more unpleasant than he had suspected, syrupy sweet with too much honey with a chaser of sour aniseed, but she was right - it did soothe his throat.

He was drowsing when she told him that his bath was ready, and asked if he felt up to the walk, it was only a few steps but if he needed Samwise to carry him he was only a shout away. Stiles did his best to walk but it was a stumbling lurch to the tub, the same wooden tub that Lord Hale had used, full of steaming water and she had a bar of scented soap ready to wash him, waiting until he was in the water to remove his shirt. Being sick, Stiles decided, meant being treated like a baby and he didn't like it. He didn't like bone broth, flavoured as it was with the bracken brown seaweed that they dried on the shores of the Kynsloch. He wanted beef, rich with gravy that ran down his forearm and wrist. He wanted suckling pig with mushed apple sauce, spiced with cinnamon that was such a treat in his father’s court, the meat basted in honey and studded with cloves, sprinkled with mace. He wanted rye bread thick with fresh butter, and smoked fish. He wanted food with flavour, even salt cod or pork, and bacon fried almost black with bread fried in the dripping.

He didn't want hyssop and honey tea but he didn't have the strength to complain. It was as if one of the demons that Father Alain spoke of had visited him in his bed and stolen three days of his life with his vitality. He couldn't even work up the strength to wiggle his toes, but the hot water felt so nice against his skin. Mother Demdike was talking as she washed him, lathering up a piece of burlap with the scented soap, he couldn't tell what the scent was but he could almost taste it, almost, and rubbing him raw with the fabric. He hadn't realised how grim his skin felt until it was clean.

“Of course,” Mother Demdike said as she washed him, uncaring if her apron dress got water slopped on it, “Peter brought me back from retirement so I could look after his new wife, brought her back from Glasgow he did, some Burgundian woman, but she doesn't speak a word of a civilised language, neither English or Scots, poor Peter tricked into a marriage with a woman he can't talk to, he can't charm her if she can't make out a word he says.”

Stiles felt like he had been turned to wool roving, loose strands held together by friction and combing so they all faced the right direction but with no strength or value except for what it would become. He felt like all the tendons holding his bones together had gotten loose and didn't hold his bones together right. He wanted to be able to process what she was saying but the hot water, the lavender oil that he suspected was in the water, and the exhaustion of his illness it was just noise. “She’s a pretty thing,” she continued, “she brought her own maid with her, like Rachel doesn't have enoguh to do, and with her knees,” Rachel’s knees were a very common topic of conversation, depending on how painful Rachel’s knees were altered the entire menu that was served to the castle, on a good day the kitchens were a light bright place full of laughter and people enjoyed their work, but on a bad day the kitchens were dark and quiet and food was perfunctory. The entire clan lived in fear of Rachel's knees. Harli was resting her head on Stiles’ shoulder and the weight of her head felt like it should push him under the water.

“Between you and me, ducky," she said as she washed his legs, “I would not be surprised if my Peter didn't worry so much for your health because you speak French so you can talk to her, but her father must have talked fast if he tricked my Peter into marriage, after Olivia we had never thought he’d marry again." She paused to rub soap into his feet, taking as much care of him as if he was a baby, “her maid’s as pretty as a picture, with hair as dark as yours, and black eyes, and she has a mark here,” she touched Stiles’ face just under his eye, “it’s no wonder Lord Derek is caught on her, pretty little thing she is, small and soft, not a word of a common language between them, but she was walking with him on the wall, he’s wearing his brace,” Stiles started to cry. He didn't know why, he was exhausted and the tears just happened, although his nose was already stuffed and his throat was as raw as if he had swallowed acid and he hurt, his entire body ached as if he had been beaten and for some reason the word that she brought him saw him break down as he had promised that he would not. “Oh you let it out, ducky,” she said pulling him to her breast, “you just let it out, tell Mother all about it.”


	17. Chapter 17

Stiles was given three days liberty to regain his health, which he knew was excessive for betas who were expected to work, he was surprised that he had not been grandfathered in to labour for Rachel turning the spit, a task that mostly meant sitting by the fire and occasionally winding the crank when the sand clock emptied. It had been the preserve of the unwell members of her kitchen for years, and on the fourth day it was not the task that Mother Demdike bullied him into. Instead he was sat in front of the fire in his own apartments in the infirmary making poultices, a task that mostly involved occasionally stirring and sitting in the steam which cleared his head.

Mother Demdike hid a will of steel underneath speech that was littered with endearments like Ducky, which was the one she used most often, dear one, lamb and so forth. She insisted that Stiles use the chamberpot and not walk to the privy which involved a short walk. The way his apartments were set up, into the hill over the Kynsloch there was a small gap between the wall and the end of the apartments which had some purpose involving drainage - he had asked Samwise about it once and gotten an explanation that suggested that neither of them understood it’s purpose, but it created a slim passage, that was open to the air, to a privy with a wooden board that had room for three asses. Samwise had explained that the infirmary had it’s own privy, which had a staircase that led up to the church floor proper, so that people who were ill didn't have to go so far to relieve themselves, but Stiles suspected it was so the people carrying the nightsoil didn’t have to traipse across the castle juggling full chamberpots.

Mother Demdike did not allow him those few steps in the cold, even with a sheepskin draped over his cloak and a thick cap over his head. He was aware, in an academic standpoint, that it had snowed, but he was not allowed outside to see.

It was exactly like living with Matilda again, just with more endearments and fewer expletives.

Mistress McCall checked on him every other day, making sure that he was drinking what felt like his own weight in hyssop tea, and that he was not taxing his stomach or overdoing it - although he had nothing to overdo. She seemed most interested in how much he had eaten and whether or not his courses were due and how soft his stools. She even had him pee in a glass vial etched with what looked to him as alchemical symbols, then holding his urine up to the natural light coming in through the small windows and making a decision, then taking it to the privy. Whatever she learned from it she did not share and Stiles was glad for it.

It took five whole days of recuperation before Lord Hale sent for him.

He almost crawled up the steps to his chamber, having to pause often to recatch his breath, which still echoed in his chest- the box of medicines and lotions rattling with little glass chinks as he did so despite the muffling of the many layers he was wearing.

Mother Demdike took the opportunity every morning and evening, as he was preparing to enter, and then leave, his bed, of smearing his chest and back with goose fat mixed with peppermint and salt to help his recovery, this stuck his shirt fast to him and then he had two layers of jerkins and his cloak because he felt the cold so keenly, then a full sheepskin - and worse when he was unwell. Every time Stiles paused Samwise offered to help and every time Stiles refused, determined that he could do it, it wasn’t that many stairs although it felt like ten times as many before he was sick.

Lord Hale’s chambers were lit by a huge fire with the chairs gathered around it, there was a kettle hanging on a trivet that was boiling merrily, with a pot sat on the hearth. As soon as Stiles entered he was ushered into a chair and the water was poured into the pot by Boyd who, taking a cup, walked into the antechamber, close enough he could appear if needed but giving the two of them their privacy.

Stiles relaxed into the chair, unhooking his cape and letting it drape over the wooden back, hands cupped around the tea, which he could not smell, and sighed his happiness. It was only then that he looked around to take in everything around him, including that Derek was stood, hunched over the fire as he made sure it was blazing, but he was not using his cane. “You are wearing your brace!” Stiles exclaimed. He had been told that it had been finished but had not expected it. It was a heavy leather case around his leg with two cast iron bars that supported his thigh under his kilt and over the stockings Stiles recognised that he had started. He’d know that ugly stitchwork anywhere.

“I can't wear it for long stretches," Derek admitted taking his own seat and raising his leg with a grunt up to the foot stool, “but it does aid me, I shall need some salve for the blisters, Mistress McCall thinks that it is only an interim thing, and given time and practise at fastening the straps,” it was held in place by several straps and buckles much like plate armour was, “I am, she tells me, fastening it too tight to make it feel secure so it rubs,” Stiles nodded, surprised at his interest. Had he been asked in his father’s court if he would be fascinated by the progress of blister’s on a highlander’s thigh he would have laughed at them and not deigned to answer but Derek was wearing the brace that he had designed, based upon a thigh plate such as they wore in full plate. It was a European conceit but his mother’s favoured guard, Stilinski, to whom Stiles himself had been particularly close, had such a suit that he kept in a chest but had once laid out on the floor to Stiles to investigate.

“It will take time to rebuild the muscles, they are not used to taking your weight," he said. There was a book in his apartment about musculature that had been translated from Arabic, which he could not read, to Latin which he could. He had pored over it and brought it to Mistress McCall when he had first found it, she had yet to return it. The author had been adamant that muscles rotted with lack of use and strengthened with continued use and spoke of a series of exercises that were not included as being vital for the management of the body. There were still a few books in the infirmary that he had not read and it was possible the exercises were in one of them but it was more likely the two books, the one with the explanations and the one with the exercises, had been separated. “The more you use the brace the less you will need to use it, ideally, ultimately, you may not need it at all.”

Derek gave a deep sigh as if he could not believe what Stiles was telling him.

“Just think how much easier it will be when you don't have to grease your leg with comfrey and yarrow before you pull on your stockings," Stiles said with a smile, “I imagine the skin on your braced leg is much softer and smoother than the other, we shall have to create cream of rosehip and violets so that they match.”

“I have something for you, for what you have done for me,” Derek lowered his eyes to his hands, laid in his lap, as he spoke, then from a pocket lashed to his belt he pulled something that Stiles could not see, worrying it between his fingers.

“You and your clan have been nothing but kind to me," Stiles protested, “you took me in and found use for me when there was nothing for you to gain from such kindness. I have heard the whispers that I am Peter’s little refugee,” Peter himself had called him that, “it is true, Peter found me when I had nothing and has offered me so much, I need nothing more.”

“My uncle does nothing without cause, perhaps he knew that you were educated and knowing that he would end up married to an omega who does not speak the tongue of the land he knew he needed a translator.”

“He probably discovered it when reading the bones," Stiles said, “or in the entrails of a chicken, I put nothing past him, I scoffed at it when I first heard that not a dog entered the castle without him there to remind it to wipe his feet, but now I know it's true.” He grinned at Derek, enjoying these conversations, “maybe he scries in that mirror in his office.”

Derek, who Stiles had learned was little given to loquaciousness, just chuckled under his breath, rubbing at this thigh through his kilt, and Stiles didn't know if it was aching or the memory of the ache that bothered him.

He had, in the past few days, wrung out by his fever and sickness, had time to think. And Derek was what he had spent so long thinking about, as Mother Demdike, and she would accept no other name and Stiles didn't want to push her - the woman had raised Peter, and possibly Lucifer besides, there was no give in her - was keen to remind him about the times that Derek had walked about with Paige.

Derek was lord of Faoilleach, Derek was expected to marry and give heirs, and it was clear that Peter had married to save his nephew who, deep in his melancholia as he was, and even since Stiles had been in the keep he had spent days in his bed at a time lacking even the strength to get up, was unready. Derek appeared young and healthy but his twisted thigh crippled him, and the sorrow was almost thick about him like a fog.

Then there was Stiles’ own situation, an omega hiding his nature by the kindness of people who did not know what he was, given freedoms by the upbringing of an omega - for no one would bother to educate betas to the extent that he was - and the invisibility of a beta. As an omega he belonged to his king, which was his father, the will of whom that he had escaped, and if his father learned where he was he would be returned and married to Ennis and it was possible that the Hale clan would be forced to pay reparations to his father for keeping his property from him.

They could never be.

Stiles still wanted to, though.

Derek was kind and soft, with a temper like a sleeping bear, and he was handsome and smelt warm and like leather and gorse and heather, and sometimes Stiles fantasised of being able to bury himself in his arms, even though they were of a height, and just letting the world slip away with a fire warming his back and his alpha, his, warming his front. It was a pleasant fantasy, but could only be that, a fantasy.

Would Derek still be kind and invite him to his chambers once he married, Paige was said to be pretty, and she was small, with long dark hair, like that that Stiles had cut away, and Mother Demdike was clear to point out that she had a mole just under her eye that framed her prettiness, Derek could marry Paige, and would it be Stiles that would help her deliver her babies, Derek’s babies, would he still call him to his room to bind his thigh?

Stiles didn't want to consider it.

Couldn't he just want?

He knew it could never be but Derek was looking at him like something was wrong, and he had been so sick and Derek couldn’t know what he was thinking. “You're quiet," Derek said softly, “it makes me worry, you’re not normally one to be quiet, are you still unwell.”

“I am recovering well,” Stiles answered, “it just takes a little time, I am stronger by the day.”

“We were worried," Derek said, “you were so unwell, and I was ushered out of your sickroom,” Stiles tilted his head at that information, there were so many stairs from his apartment under the infirmary to Derek's room and Derek's leg was so weak, stronger under the brace but stairs would be such a problem, but Stiles had collapsed in that apartment, they had treated him there because everything they needed was in that room. “Boyd remained, he helped to bury you in ice when your fever grew so great. He had to physically hold your dog back from trying to pull you from the bath by your shirt because she was scared that we were hurting you, you screamed so. I was as scared as she.” Derek admitted that with a sigh, “I had to make myself useful, boiling water and shovelling ice. I admitted to Boyd that I feared you might die.”

Stiles’ heart was a lump in his throat he could not swallow past. He tried to wash it down with a mouthful of the tea. He didn't taste it.

“It is good to see you so well, you looked so close to death,” he shook his head, “so I promised myself that if you were to regain your health, if you survived, I would show you how much you mean to me,” he was worrying the thing in his hand that he had taken from his pocket, “you are dear to me, and you have brought me succour when none could, and I would have you know that, and those who lay eyes on you to know it also.”

Their chairs suddenly felt very close together when Derek swung his leg down and got up, something in his hand against the arms of the chair which he used as leverage. He lurched over to Stiles, his brace making it hard for him to walk at that angle and took Stiles’ hand in his own. His hands were hot and felt clammy against the rough skin of Derek’s palm. “This is how I show my favour," Derek said, and tied the ends of the bracelet around Stiles' wrist.

“ _Brisangamen_ ,” Stiles muttered under his breath, remembering the story of the necklace, with nine pieces of amber, one for each realm that the gods ruled. It was a story that guardsman Stilinski had told him. It was a weave of gold chains, twisted like the sides of a wicker basket or hurdle, curled around chunks of amber. It looked like it should belong to a goddess and was certainly finer than one would give to a favoured physic in their employ. It would have been more appropriate as a mating gift to show to all gathered that the omega was married, but Derek had given it to him.

It was heavy, heavier than he had thought it might be, but the chunks of amber caught the firelight so they glowed like banked embers, and Stiles felt cherished and heartbroken all in one. Derek didn't know what it meant, he was rich and powerful and he believed Stiles to be a beta.


	18. Chapter 18

Stiles worried at the bangle on his wrist, unused to the weight of it, and Derek seeing him fuss with it as they talked smiled, his eyes caught by the way the amber stones looked like banked embers on his arm. “Do you like it?” he asked, changing the thread of the conversation thoroughly from an amusing story that the crofters had told Stiles and bringing it back to the two of them. Suddenly Lord Hale's chambers felt much more intimate.

“It's lovely," Stiles said with lowered eyes, it felt so inappropriate for Derek to give him such a gift. A lord might give one of their vassals a gift for a service well rendered, such as having a brace fitted to ease his pain, but it would not be something so rich, or so obvious. A Lord might give a knife or a new pair of boots. This bracelet was the sort of gift that a Lord would give his mari. “Are you sure it’s not too fine?” He felt obliged to ask but he was going to cling to it with teeth and fingernails and insults and kicking, it was his now and they’d take it off his corpse if they could find it. He’d run away before, he could do it again. He had his mother’s pendant in his satchel, locked away under the infirmary, he could hide this if he needed to.

“It is not too fine,” Derek said and his voice was soft. “It well becomes you," he continued, “The colour, it is like your eyes.” There was a growl in his voice, one that Stiles had not heard in his voice before. “I was so scared that I might lose you, I worried that you were poisoned, that you had been attacked, I did not know what to think other than that I would lose someone else dear to me.”

“I am dear to you?” Stiles couldn't help but blurt it out. It struck him as so out of nature for Derek, he was a handsome alpha lord, he was lord of all the Hale Clan, all of the people in the clan were gathered together to serve him, he was a king in his own right, and perhaps had he been known as an omega, and he had been married to Derek because his father had wanted to build a bridge between them then such a declaration was appropriate, Stiles was merely his physic.

“You are so dear to me,” Derek said and licked his lips, leaning forward and his hands seemed to move towards Stiles of their own volition. He wore a ring on his left hand, that glinted in the light, as bright as the amber stones on the bracelet he had given Stiles. It was a gesture so unlike Derek that Stiles noted it, Derek was little given to moments of weakness and doubt such as he was showing. The whole tableau robbed Stiles of speech but Derek was not similarly silent. “You torment me.”

“Me?” Stiles asked, he couldn't ask.

“Yes," Derek was still stood from where he had clasped the bracelet around Stiles’ wrist and he stepped forward, taking Stiles hand again. He was close enough that Stiles was overwhelmed by the very smell of him, leather and wool and gorse and warmth. It was a smell Stiles wanted so much to wrap around him, and he was still so weak from his weakness that he felt that he didn’t know his own mind.

Derek was handsome and warm and there, and Stiles was weak, the illness had robbed so very much from him, that he could not resist when Derek lowered his mouth to Stiles’ in a kiss.

It was as if the wit was stolen from him with his breath. Derek's hands were on his chest, pulling him forward from the chair and closer to him, to his feet and Stiles just went with him. He could not think to question what was happening, just that something that he wanted, had wanted for what felt like an eternity, was happening, and he had not thought it possible.

He could taste the tea on Derek's breath, there was no wine so that he could claim the lord was drunken, there was nothing between them but air, pressed tight between them. It was clumsy, little more than their mouths sliding together but Derek's hands were so firm on his shoulders, it didnt’ matter that Stiles, not knowing what to do with his hands, put them on Derek's waist. That seemed to please him judging by the low growl that sounded in his throat. He stumbled backwards, his leg buckling under the weight of Stiles pulled towards him and they took steps backwards together, falling with a laugh and Stiles pushing his hair back from his ear on the left side before diving in to kiss Derek again.

He wanted this.

It felt like a fire in his veins, coursing through him and burning him from the inside out, pressed as he was between Derek's legs, they were splayed in the chair with the pleats of the kilt rucked up to show one stockinged knee and Stiles put his hand on it, not ready yet to touch him without the barrier of fabric.

Derek's mouth travelled to his neck, sucking soft kisses against his throat, with his hands tugging down his jerkins, then scrabbling under the hem, finding more fabric and laughing and how wonderful that sound was, and with a jerk the tunics and shirt were out of the way and Derek's hand touched the skin of his stomach.

The touch was like ice water splashed over Stiles, and he jerked back, “I can’t," he stammered, grabbing at his belt, “I’m sorry, I can’t,” and grabbing his cloak, draped over the chair in which he sat he went to bolt.

“Is it something that I did?” Derek looked bereft, as if he was lost, and young and all the surety that he had had before was gone. He looked like a victim, sprawled in the chair which had always looked like a throne before.

Stiles was crying, he didn't even know why, but he scrubbed at his face, “it's not you,” he said, “you’re wonderful and amazing, but I can’t.”

He was ruined, an omega who destroyed all of his chances and was only worth what his father chose him for, some minor lord that he wanted to appease, and then he would claim back any children that Stiles had of worth, of no more value than for his babies. He wouldn't even be worth a marriage to Ennis, one that was sure to kill him, because his father liked Ennis - unlike Stiles he was useful and did what he was told. Derek didn't deserve that, and if he learned what Stiles was, if he learned Stiles secret, then he would have to return him to his father, he would be honour bound and Stiles wouldn't put Derek through that.

It didn't matter how much he wanted to.

He had to protect Derek, and the only way that he could was refuse him. “I’m not good, Derek, I destroy everything I touch, and I don't want to destroy you.” He had run from a good home and a promising marriage, he had run to a convent that had not existed, into a forest that he didn't know and even being a doctor he had fallen so sick that he had nearly died and needed a nursemaid like he was some mewling omega maiden from one of Isaac’s lays. Maybe someday he’d sing one about Stiles. It would be a cautionary tale.

Twice over Derek had ruined him - and he didn't even know that Stiles could be ruined.

Holding his cloak to his chest, like a comfort blanket, Stiles fled the room, almost lacking the strength to leave beyond it, but Samwise was there. “Are you well?” he asked, taking Stiles’ wan complexion and the sweat at his hairline.

“No,” Stiles said, “can you help me?” And Samwise slipped his arm under Stiles’ own to support him, and they slowly made their way back to the infirmary, although the last few steps felt like an eternity, and then he went face first for his bed. Harli was curled up on her mat chewing away on a sheep’s hoof. Since Stiles had fallen sick she was the recipient of many treats for her valour, and she had enjoyed the attention and the deer horns, and sheep hooves and the occasional soup bone - although that had been rarer - with the solid knowledge that she was a good girl and she did deserve them and more.

Seeing her master return and that he was upset she was faced with the very real dilemma of finishing her treat or comforting him, and he saw the dilemma on her face and laughed, which acted as a signal to her and she lumbered over to him and dumped her head in his lap, "I love you too," he said, rubbing her ears, "I’m well, girl, I’m well.” It didn’t matter that he was lying, she loved him regardless.

—-

The next few days Stiles did his best to avoid Derek and Boyd, and when possible, even Peter. He did this by claiming weakness when he thought that he would be believed and helping Mistress McCall when he was sure that he would not. She had settled his scriptorium on the work table beside the fire under a reed light, so altohugh the light was not as good he was warmer and wrapped up with a fleece fixed over his shoulders and a wool blanket over his knees he was left to get on with it.

Occasionally she would check in on him, assess the quality of his work and hand him cups of hyssop tea when it became apparent his coughing was distracting her from what she was doing. Once she released him from his duties and he made his way through the kitchens to be fed, and then to his bed where he pretended to sleep until he was asleep.

It only took three days before Peter had worked out the pattern and subverted it, sitting in the kitchens at the table where the serving girls ate, waiting for him. It seemed the time that had passed between since their last meeting had done little to dull Peter’s appetite, because Peter who prefered to eat alone in his study, was sharing his meal with the girls, including a small cask of wine, flirting with them in the steady assurance that nothing was going to come of it and the flattery was the entire point.

When he noticed Stiles, turning and realising that Peter was there and cutting him off before he had a chance to duck out of the kitchen and towards the infirmary with the plate, which Stiles had attempted to do, he called Stiles over. With his escape route cut off Stiles sat.

They eat in silence for some moments until the girls that Peter had been harmlessly flirting with finished their meals and were set to the task of serving the throng in the main hall where most of the clansmen, those who were unmarried or lived in the castle, were fed as part of their pay. With some privacy Peter turned to Stiles, tossing his knife in his hand- end over end, “are you going to tell me what happened?”

Stiles watched the blade turn, Peter catching it effortlessly by the handle each time and throwing it up again. The display was entirely to unnerve him and it was absolutely working.

“I had a fever," Stiles blurted out, “I didn't realise I was in heat, I thought I was still ill, I’m sorry, I didn't know.”

Peter missed catching the knife, and missed slicing off his fingers by a very small margin. “I think we’re having two very different conversations,” he said at last, after washing down his surprise with the white wine. Peter preferred red but Stiles had told him that he prefered white and so had arranged it for their accidental meeting. “And it seems that what I had to speak to you about is much less interesting in what you have been avoiding speaking to me about, and yes, I am perfectly aware of your perfectly transparent attempts to avoid our usual game of farkle.”

Stiles rubbed at the back of his neck and looked down and away, past his plate and cup of wine that Peter had given him. “Derek kissed me," he blurted out, “when I got back to my rooms I realised," he noticed Peter noticing the bangle on his wrist, “I thought I was too warm because I’d done too much and brought back my fever, everyone said you were there and you saw how bad it was, and, I tried to take it easy, I did, I promise, so when I was hot and itchy it didn't occur to me it might be my cycle, I just thought it was the fever, that I'd done too much,” Peter nodded, making a “go on” gesture. “I was always kept sequestered before when I was in heat, I didn't realise how it would change things, it doesn't affect betas, and my father, he always said that an omega in heat turned alphas into puddingheads,” Peter laughed out loud at the comment. “I turned him into a puddinghead and he kissed me.”

Peter just shook his head as if he couldnt' believe the whole thing that he was hearing, but was amused rather than angry. “I didn't even leave you alone for it to happen,” Peter said, “I’ll speak to Derek, make sure that he sends for Mistress McCall to tend his leg.”

“He’s wearing the brace," Stiles said, “and it's helping, it really is, and don't be too angry at him, he couldn't help it, any more than a dog in the woods could.”

Peter sighed at that comment. “Stiles," he said, “I hope you realise how insulting that last comment was," he poured more wine, and managed to make it very threatening. “Not just to my nephew, but to myself and every alpha I have ever known. How many alphas helped you for those days when you thought you had a fever, and not one of them did anything they did not want to do, Derek is perfectly capable of making his own mistakes, you don’t have to take the blame. Heat doesn’t make alphas stupid creatures totally overruled by their cock, it makes them tractable and easily led. Had you asked him for the bracelet you’re trying to hide under your cuff,” Stiles gestured feverishly that he absolutely had not, and had not even known that it had existed before, “then you would be to blame, and then only for stealing the bracelet. Derek knows his own mind, and he can be to blame for his own actions.” He paused, taking a sip of the wine, “unless you wanted him to kiss you, and told him to.”

“I didn't tell him to," the words fell over themselves, “but I did want him to. I never mentioned it, I promise, I was so tired from all of those stairs I was too tired to even think that I wanted it, but I did, I wanted him to kiss me.”

“Dear Lord, olease save me from idiot alphas and too clever omegas," Peter muttered under his breath. “If it were not for the entire political fuckscape that it would cause I would say the two of you deserve each other and a lifetime of happiness causing each other misery, you are going to drive me into an early grave before the Burgundian girl does; she at least pretends to listen to me.”

“Pretends?” Stiles asked, hoping that it might change the subject, Peter seemed grateful for the opportunity to complain about what he had wanted to complain about, but it was reprieve Stiles knew, it was only a matter of time before the entire problem would be the topic of conversation again.

“She pats my hand as if she cares when I talk, when I am sure that Harli has more words in English and she is yet to tell me what she thinks.”

“Harli adores you," Stiles told him, and not a word, “given a few more morsels of cheese and she might it’s in her favour to abandon my bed for yours, if your new wife does not object.”

“I haven’t seen her since we returned here,” Peter’s tone was calm, “her maid has been out and about, using some sort of shared language to make her mistress’ wishes known but she herself, you are more likely to see my nephew abroad than her.”

“Do you think she’s lonely?” Stiles asked, pushing away his plate and the half eaten trencher left on it. Rachel would have one of her girls scrape the platter clean into her pig bucket, nothing went to waste where Rachel could find a use for it.

“Harli? She has you," Peter was deflecting and Stiles’ expression told him that he knew that.

“Your bride, this is a strange place to her, no one speaks Burgundian, the best she can hope for is that Mistress McCall and I speak French.”

“Melissa speaks French?” Peter cut him off, “I didn't know that.”

“Physickers from Salerno spent as long learning language as they did medicine, you kinda have to be able to ask someone what is wrong." Peter chewed on the information, deciding that it did make sense, although it was obviously not sometihng that he had ever considered before.

“I might be asking a lot of you," Peter said, “but you speak French, my new bride speaks French, could you call on her, make sure that all is well.”

“She’s probably scared stupid,” Stiles pointed out, “I know I was when I first came here, the clansmen look like someone put a kilt on a bramble bush and their accent and own language makes them unintelligible most of the time, and they are so large in their expression. They never feel anything without showing it with their whole bodies, you showed her a room and then left her. She can't even ask if you are going to call on her.”

Peter chewed on the information. These were other things that he had not considered.It was not like Peter not to consider every possible outcome. “I never wanted to marry again, but I thought it would be better if I married her, not Derek.”

Stiles took the time to think before he answered, “maybe I’m being pert and overstepping the mark but, Peter, which of them are you saving, her from Derek or Derek from her?”

Peter didn't have an answer for that.


	19. Chapter 19

Stiles managed to pass two weeks in the castle before he saw Derek again. In that time his health improved until he felt that he could run up the hill to the castle and the stairs to Derek's tower without his breath catching, but Mistress McCall made it clear that he was not to. He was still producing phlegm but she was sure that it and the accompanying cough were nothing that could not be healed with time and linctus. Even so, she kept him almost quarantined for there were those who had died of the illness that had struck him so strongly. Instead of helping Heather, who proudly exclaimed that she had the constitution of a stout draught horse because she never got sick, on her rounds he spent his days hunched over Mistress McCall's copying, but now she questioned him on what he was learning, instead of treating him like a blind scribe.

Once it started to get dark he was requisitioned into the service of the new Lady Hale. The new Lady Hale was a young girl of only seventeen, no older than Stiles but he found he felt much older than her. She was a quiet girl who appraised every gesture those around her made looking for the correct response and the wild exuberance of the clansmen caused her to flinch in on her self. Her maid, Paige, was a lovely girl with large brown eyes, milk-pale skin and hair as dark as Stiles' own. She stood of a height with her lady and despite the fact, her lady's hair was the color of Welsh gold, the same as the bracelet around Stiles' wrist, and Paige's was dark if they were veiled it would be easy to substitute one for the other based entirely on their build. Up close the difference was striking and made clearer by a large beauty spot under Paige's eye.

Lady Hale, who insisted he call her Lydia, as one omega to another, and she had taken one look at him and known everything she needed to know about him- She was quiet and she watched but she was not unobservant, favoured dark coloured gowns that came down over her hands to hide what Stiles suspected was a scar from rope-burn. When she saw that he had noticed it she jerked her hand back. "I can give you some oil for that," he said, "I'm the physicks apprentice, there are oils that reduce scarring." She narrowed her eyes, as uncomfortable in French as he was - it was neither of their first language. She flinched at loud noises and the clansmen who were set to guard her fighting outside her door caused her to jump out of her chair, causing Stiles to open the door and shout at them.

She never initiated conversation but would answer questions she was asked.

She never asked about Peter.

And when he left to share supper with Peter he never asked about her.

Peter asked him about Derek a few times if Stiles had been sent for because Derek had been seen walking about wearing the brace, but Stiles admitted that he had not. There was some conversation about an upcoming boar hunt because Mistress McCall would be attending and Stiles would have nothing to do because she would not trust her apprentices to the hunt. 

Boar hunting was a violent sport where the boar would be flushed out by men on horseback with hounds - it was what Harli had been intended for - the boar would then run into the woods where men with spears would be waiting. When the boar charged the hunter he was to drive the spear in using the force of the boar's charge to force the wood and metal in. Often this would cause the boar to be launched up and over the hunter and then falling in a squealing screaming lump that ideally broke it's back. That allowed the hunter to duck in safely and slit its throat. However, if the hunter missed with the spear and could not dodge out of the way in time he was often torn apart by the tusks.

It was an annual tradition of the Hale Clan and Rachel was already preparing her kitchen for as many as ten boars that would need to be butchered, smoked and preserved in barrels of salt. This was done by having the kitchens scrubbed from top to bottom and the abattoir was washed out and flushed out with water and vinegar. This meant that she pulled in anyone that she thought might be idle to aid, even if it was only having clansmen moving furniture so they could clean underneath them.

With the kitchens cold for the cleaning the meals were either stews cooked over the trivet, made entirely from cold and preserved meats and barley, or just the cold meats and cheese served with bread. The only exception was for the new Lady Hale who Rachel had adopted and she used the table in the apothecary to make her individual pies and called her a sweet, lost thing. This was a surprise because Rachel was generally as maternal as a viper. She worked with Mother Demdike and the herbs and winter vegetables that Erica brought back with her to make sweet treats for her, and the one time that Stiles had tried to steal one, fresh from the oven in his rooms, he had his hand slapped away and told to go back to his knitting.

Although Mother Demdike had finished the first pair of stockings that he had been making she had gotten him more yarn and there was a window after supper where the two of them sat knitting in quiet companionship, she might have been capable of working under lamplight to create vast and complicated patterns but he had his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth making sure he didn't lose stitches from needle to needle.

It was almost like being back with Matilda in the care of his father.

Harli spent this time sprawled in front of the fire, occasionally getting up to empty her water bowl, she was fed with the castle's other hounds, and then stumbling over to make sure Stiles was still in the shepherd's chair by  putting her heavy and sopping wet, from drinking, head on his lap with a whine. She was not allowed up to see the new Lady Hale. Stiles suspected that the violence she had gone through, and it was clear that there was violence, would not be eased by the presence of such a large dog. Harli might have been as soft as butter but she didn't look it, she looked like she might be part bear. She didn't mind much, she liked Mother Demdike and she loved the fireplace and the rug that she had stolen from the castle's guest room when they had stayed there.

It was an easy life with little change but apart from his problem with Derek, and avoiding him, he found that he was happy. And if sometimes he sat in the giant wicker shepherd's chair that had been brought in for his recovery turning the bracelet on his wrist over and over, staring into the twists of metal and the banked fire of the stones, who was to comment?

Peter looked as if he would ask once, but then closed his mouth and went back to throwing the dice.

 

\---

 

Stiles was enjoying his day of leisure, playing in the lower courtyard outside the church that housed the apothecary and had served as a hospital in Lady Talia's reign, which was mostly quiet because unless people were visiting the church or passing through no one came to call, by playing with Harli. He had bought, with a salve of pine and beeswax, a yard of a good medium rope that he had welded with tar into a loop for he and Harli to play tugs with. With his new itinerary, he hadn't had time to play with Harli the way that she wanted to play for long periods of time with no one to disturb them. A large wooden ball for kicking was also grandfathered in for a game of kickball, although Harli's barking tended to get quite loud when he wasn't kicking the ball enough for her liking. That included any time she was moving the ball between her feet.

That attracted the attention of some of the keep's children, who started a bit scared of the barking giant dog who seemed very angry but eventually joined in the game shrieking with laughter as loud as she was.

He looked up and saw Derek, walking with a cane but clearly using his brace, stood on the walls that lined the southern edge of the courtyard, Boyd behind him. Seeing Derek watch him Stiles half expected him to turn and duck his head as he walked away but Derek met his gaze fiercely, without backing down. It caused one of the boys to careen into his side with the ball and Harli to come charging over barking as if chiding him to pay attention, and Stiles had to turn his attention to a girl who had fallen at the edge of the game, skinning her knee.

By the time he had given her a honey plaster and Harli had given her a lot of affectionate kisses, with longing glances to the game going on behind them, and Stiles could check the wall again Derek was gone, back to his walk, and the exercise that he had been advised to take daily to keep his weakened leg strong, and Stiles didn't know how to process it.

He expected that he would be summoned that night - but he was not.

So when Harli climbed into his bed with a great sigh, putting her heavy head on the dip of his waist with a sigh he rubbed her head, the stones on his bracelet catching the light and said, "I know, girl, I know."

\---

Stiles was sat with Lydia and Paige in Lydia's chambers. He was knitting, trying to master the awful purl stitch which had him baffled but allowed him to make patterns in his stockings. Lydia was following a pattern on her tablet weaving which she used to calm her mind, although occasionally she would curse in her native language. Paige was adjusting a set of gowns which Peter had delivered, fingers lingering on the material so that they would fit Lydia. It was likely that they had belonged for the first Lady Hale and had been kept for any omega or lady who had followed, of which Lydia was the first. The gowns were fine but they were stiff from disuse having been kept in storage, packed in cedar and lavender, so Paige was changing the underarm gussets and the trim. The belt that Lydia was making would suit the dove grey gown very well.

Lydia always wore a scarf around her neck and it came loose as she slammed the heddle into the shed, Stiles looked up at the movement and for the moment before Lydia tucked it back in neatly as if it was a coif, there was a dark red mark around her neck like a scar.

There was a loud noise outside the door and Lydia flinched, her hands on the bone tablets, when Peter came in, he looked harried. "Stay in here," he said firmly, "Stiles, make sure that they understand. You can't leave this room."

"What's going on?" he asked.

"We have visitors until we know what is happening we need to you to be safe and to protect her, make sure she knows." He looked across at Lydia and gave a quick frown, a tightening of the lips that did not suit him. "I'm sure it's nothing, but we need you to be safe."

"What is happening?" Lydia asked in her syrupy accented French.

"I don't know," Stiles said, "he just wants us to stay here." 

Samwise moved inside the room with his stool, and sat down, with his arms crossed so that he looked even more threatening than usual, which was a surprise for he was a very large burly man who seemed to be at least fifty percent wiry hair.

"Samwise," Stiles asked, "what's happening?"

"Nothing for you to worry about," Samwise said, and his voice sounded lower and deeper than usual, and under his thick beard he was frowning.

"The more I don't know, the more I worry," Stiles said as Lydia asked again what was happening. There was a terrific hubbub outside, dogs barking and men yelling. Heavy footsteps like some people running went past the door.

"Peter is fixing it now," Samwise said, "just stay here." He looked across at the fire, making sure that there was enough fuel for the evening. 

Again Lydia asked what was going on, and Paige looked between them. Lydia started to sound frantic, her hands were white-knuckled on the bone tablets and the heddle hung uselessly.

"You're scaring Lady Hale," Stiles started, raising his voice, letting Lydia's obvious fear cover his own, because he was scared. Faoilleach had become a bastion for him, a place where he was safe and he could wander free and no one minded, he wasn't bustled about with a nursemaid because he was an omega. He was allowed to help, he was learning to be a medic. Rachel and Mistress McCall were kind in their way, and Peter's empty flirting was fun, and there was Derek who was so kind and good and sad and he wanted Harli because how could he think when she wasn't here, anything could be happening and he didn't know where his dog was, and he was finding it hard to catch his breath.

It was Paige who knelt on the wooden floor before him, repeating the Lord's prayer over and over in Latin that he might recite it along with her, so the familiar cadences would allow him to catch his breath. Lydia stood up, pulling out the wooden hook that attached her weaving to the fixed post and her belt and let it fall, going to her bed and climbing up against the headboard with her knees to her chest.

Something had happened in Lydia's past that she did not speak of and it was a deep and abiding fear within her.

The door opened and Derek was there, for a moment he looked between the three of them, Lydia sat with her back to the headboard and her arms around her shins, Stiles, with Paige kneeling on the floor before him, holding his hand, and the two of them looking scared, and before he could say something Harli bounded past him, running over to Stiles and licking his face with a desperation that suggested that they had been apart much longer than they had. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck, "you're my good girl," he said over and over, secure in the fact that she was there, and she was present and she was solid and large and heavy and there. If Derek said something Stiles did not hear him, but Samwise got up and closed the door behind him with an "I understand."


	20. Chapter 20

Mother Demdike brought them supper, a selection of cured meats and cheese with several fresh loaves with the bases cut away, she had two bottles of cider  tucked in the pockets of her apron and although Lydia had cups of her own, from her pockets she pulled four wooden cups with silver rims and poured the cider into the cups, then she sat down heavily on the stool and the three others in the room, Samwise had restored himself outside the door, and Harli had raised her head to inspect the newcomer and went back to worshipping the fire, waited for her to tell them what was happening.

She drained her cup and from her basket, the one that Stiles used for carrying medicines for Mistress McCall, pulled out a pot of chutney still sealed with wax.

"What is going on?" Stiles asked, he would need to be the one that translated for Lydia and Paige, even if the lack of knowledge was eating him alive. He did not do well with curiosity or being constrained. He could spend a day in a room and not notice but the instant he was told that he could not leave he immediately had to - it was just his nature.

Lydia was still sitting curled up on the bed, with a pillow in her arms.

"Peter has it sorted, ducky," Mother Demdike said and started laying out plates, giving each bread, cheese and meat in equal portions, even though Paige was a servant and was expected to eat after her Lady. Stiles had no idea where in the hierarchy that Mother Demdike fell, it was clearly in that nebulous place occupied by Rachel and Mistress McCall where they did not officially have power but ruled the castle as surely as Peter did. They even pretended to listen to Peter.

Stiles was much lower in the pecking orders, Samwise might have been higher ranked, and Harli certainly was because she almost always got her way. 

It was clear that they didn't want him to interfere or worry, but Stiles didn't know why and that made it worse. How could he trust Peter when he didn't know what he was expected to trust him to do. And what if Derek got hurt which was something he didn't want to countenance, had Derek returned to the sanctuary of his rooms when he had delivered Harli to Stiles? Was he ensconced in his chair in front of the fire with Boyd to watch over him? Or was he there, with Peter, leaning on his cane showing off his brace and his weakness to whatever it was? Would this problem manipulate his weakness and hurt him? Was he racked by melancholia? Did the snow hurt his leg? 

It was eating away at Stiles and felt like a rock in his belly and everyone expected him to be calm and eat and tell Lydia who was so clearly scared that everything was fine when he didn't know what was happening in order to reassure her.

Lydia spoke, addressing Paige, and she did so in her own language. "Zijn het de heksenjagers? Zijn ze hier voor mij??"

Paige answered her and whatever it was that she said did little to ease her lady. 

"Oh, kitten," Mother Demdike said, clearly recognising Lydia's fear in her words but unable to understand what she said, and she had said it in Burgundian so that Stiles would not understand and could not answer, "come, eat at the table, or you'll be sharing your bed with crumbs and no one has found anything as sharp as a breadcrumb found in the night between the folds."

Stiles repeated the words to her in French but she replied that she had no appetite.

Mother Demdike took the words that Stiles repeated but then took a piece of linen from her apron, which often amazed Stiles with what she could carry in it, and covered her plate, muttering that it was "for later when she'd be wanting it."

Under her gaze Stiles ate the food but he could not say that he tasted it. He knew it was good for Rachel would not serve anything that she was not proud of, but it was a mechanical gesture of breaking apart the food in his hands, bringing it to his mouth and then chewing, wetting the food with the cider and swallowing. Paige, he saw, was doing the same, but Mother Demdike was clearly enjoying her supper judging by the wet smackings of her lips and her noises which she was doing deliberately to try and urge the three of them to eat, even Lydia curled up around her pillow, with her nose buried in the linen like she was a scared child.

Stiles did not know what was going on outside the walls, only that he was ushered away from the windows, but he did not like that it scared her so completely. She had been a companion of little more than a fortnight and even then they spoke of things that had little to do with who they had been. They shared a desire to forget the past and embrace the future and he had complimented her on her weaving, for her selvages were among the neatest that he had ever seen, and he had spoken of the loom that was in Madame Blake's chambers that had not been worked for years but Peter was so careful of her that if she asked it of him he would have it installed in her chambers by the next day - Madame Blake was clearly not using it. That was the sort of conversation that they shared and she was so observant when people around her were talking in Scots that it would not be long before she spoke it as comfortably as Stiles himself did. Lydia was smart, certainly too smart to be wasted in a tower doing little else but weaving - perhaps Mistress McCall would teach her too.

It meant finding out what was going on outside the castle walls. 

Mother Demdike might have looked like she could easily be tricked but the old woman had raised Peter - she didn't miss a trick. She put herself down in Lydia's padded sitting chair in front of the fire with her back to the window so she could watch them intently. She reached into the pockets of her skirt and pulled out her knitting, and Stiles knew from past experience that was just a ruse to make people think she wasn't paying attention, just because she was knitting faster than he had thought was possible did not mean that she wasn't tracking everything. 

Paige took one of the stools by the fire and sat doing mending. Lydia had several gowns with her but she stood so small that any that she was given from Faoilleach's stores would need to be hemmed and cuffed, and Paige was using her lady's beautifully woven bands to trim them, so it looked like they had always been like that.

Stiles stood up and went to move to the door, "I need to get my knitting," he said, "I've left it in the infirmary apartments."

"Tell Samwise, ducky, he'll send someone to get it for you." Mother Demdike could see straight through the ruse and did not believe a word of it.

"I was being polite," he said, "I need to piss like a racehorse and I'm not doing it here in front of them!"

"Why ever not, ducky?" Mother Demdike said with a fond smile, "everyone here has seen a cock before, and it's not like yours is big enough to be worth mentioning."

Stiles was offended by that, just because he was an omega didn't mean he didn't have the usual male pride in regards to his member, he had always considered it a pleasant handful, and it did everything a cock was meant to, so just because it wasn't alpha huge didn't mean that it should be mocked.

"Would you say that to Samwise?" he asked with his hands on his hips.

"I don't know, shall we ask him in, find out if he's got something going with his cock that might be surprising, why I knew a man in Edinburgh, had a boil on his foreskin the size of a quail's egg, and damn if he didn't shriek like a banshee on fire when we lanced it. I think he would have gone about his life with that quail egg growing into a hen's egg or a goose egg and never got it removed blaming his wife for not visiting his bed, when barely five months at sea and he comes back lice and boils and stinking like a midden in high summer. She was absolutely in the right, I woulnd't have let him in my bed for fear of my sheets never mind between my thighs, it looked for all the world like he had a third testicle growing there." Mother Demdike was saying this entirely to distract Stiles, "so we can ask Samwise, and if he has a boil there, the hair is awful for making them grow like that, we can take young Paige's needle and boil some wine and have entertainment all night long."

"You are a terrible woman," Stiles told her.

"Always use a boiled hot cloth on your privates when you've washed them, and make sure to use soap, get right in there, men almost have their cocks in hand for one reason or another but the idea of washing them," she winked at him, "you'll be learning that when you're wed, some stinking alpha with his monster cock stinking like a dead pig wanting his rights. I spent years teaching Peter, he always smells nice." She was doing this deliberately, "you might want to tell her ladyship, I'm proud of the hard work I put into teaching Peter to washing his alpha cock, and behind his ears."

"I don't need to know about Peter in the bath," Stiles said, "I need to piss."

"And as I said, there's a chamberpot there, we can get Samwise to get another one." She answered, she was clearly taking all of this in her stride. Peter had clearly been a very sneaky young man if she could work around all of this. Nothing bothered her, Stiles was sure he could piss in her lap and she'd just send him for a new apron for her. IT was another thing that he did not put past Peter either.

"And is Harli going to piss in a pot too?" he asked her. 

"We can ask Samwise for a mop and floor brush, a bucket of water," She beamed at him, clearly enjoying the game, "just take the pot behind the screen, you're not going out tonight."

"Why?" he asked, "what the hell is out there that Derek told me to stay here, and that Lydia is scared enough she doesn't want to leave her bed and won't tell me what's scaring her and I can't even take my damn dog outside for a shit?"

Mother Demdike dropped her knitting, "getting smart with me young man won't get you your own way, you are not so big that I can't put you over my knee, and it won't do anything for her ladyship's nerves if I jerk down those pants of yours now and give you a switching for talking to me like that."

"Well if you want to send me out to fetch a switch," Stiles said with his hands on his hips. If Mother Demdike did raise a hand against him if Harli didn't growl at her or cause enough ruckus that Samwise would come in and end it, "I can at least take Harli out and take the opportunity to piss myself."

Mother Demdike had the dirtiest laugh that Stiles had ever heard, and her hands flickered with her knitting as she laughed, "you're a wicked imp, and given the chance you'd talk the devil himself around to your way of thinking, there is an army outside the walls, and we don't know why, my little Peter is talking to them now, you and her Ladyship are precious treasures and when this sort of thing happens you lock your treasures down." She looked down at her knitting, which she normally only did when she suspected that she had dropped a stitch. "Go behind the screen, Erica can walk Harli in a short while, I'm sure your giant demon dog," she made a point of calling Harli that because she was so large. She would joke that she was a demon, or a bear wearing a dog suit, and then scratched behind her ears and reassured her she was a good demon dog, and then Harli would turn around too fast and bump her into something because Harli might have been the size of a pony but she was convinced that she was the size of a small cat.

"The army," Stiles asked, "who does it belong to?"

"It's just an expeditionary force," she admitted, "but it is led by Deucalion himself, the Destroyer beyond the Wall, but it's nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about, now shall I send Samwise to find someone to fetch your knitting?"

"He's here for me," Stiles said.

"Don't be silly, lamb," she said, "alphas will be alphas after all," she said it so dismissively. It was clear that she thought that moving armies was the usual hijinks that alphas got up to when there was no one to remind them not to.

"But he's my father," Stiles corrected her, "he's my king, and if he's come here he's come here for me."


	21. Chapter 21

It wasn't until Erica came to relieve Samwise that Stiles got an opportunity to escape. In the small leeway before she took over Mother Demdike graciously allowed Stiles to visit the apothecary's apartment where he lived to get things he could sleep in, although he would be in a pallet front of the fire, and don't you think otherwise, young man, Harli's mat, and take the opportunity to gather his tinctures for the morning and let Harli out because she had started to whine and make everyone understand that she needed to go.

Although Erica was strict Stiles knew it would be easy enough to escape her. He waited until they were both in the apothecary, and he had gathered up that needed to be carried and explained that he needed to visit the privy whilst they were there. He promised her that he would be just a minute but he didn't want to have to piss in front of the new Lady Hale and she made a joke about performance anxiety and let him go. 

He did go to the privy, as he said that he would, but then went up the hidden back stairs to the chapel, down the main steps to the apothecary and barred the door, before leaving the chapel. It wouldn't take Erica long to realise that she had been duped but the barred door would give him a little extra time. He didn't want her to be in trouble on his behalf but the whole thing was his fault.

So, dressed as he was for sitting indoors he wrapped his arms around himself to ward against the cold winter night and started to follow along in the shadow of the wall, where the guards, who were facing outwards, would not see him. He was sure that the noise of his teeth chattering would give him away.

He made his way, stumbling a few times without a light to guide him, to the postern gate that was mostly covered in ivy and that he had noticed before when playing with  Harli. He hoped it had not warped shut from disuse, or the hinges squeal loud enough to give him away as he pushed it open. It opened on the middens and closed behind him, with no latch to open it again, and he let the ivy fall back over it. The middens crunched under his feet as he, sticking close to the wall, made his way around the castle to the rocks.

He wasn't running away, he couldn't do that again, and not without Harli, never without Harli, but he had to fix this. This was all his fault, and he could fix it, he was sure that he could fix it. His father would understand. He'd ask only that Harli be restored to him and he'd return home, back to the watchful gaze of Matilda and he'd marry Ennis, he'd be good, if they'd just leave. The Hales were so kind and they had done him no wrong. His father would understand that, surely.

He ducked down into the ditch, skinning both palms against the frozen surface of the rocks, and then went along the bottom to the place where it looked easiest to climb and managed it only falling once, but banging his hip hard as he did so. He couldn't even curse his luck. Following the edge of the forest where Erica laid her traps he found a gap in the lights of the encampment and walked in, trying his best to look for all the world that he belonged there.

That was a trick he had learned at Matilda's knee, people might look for a lost omega prince but a beta boy carrying a basket might as well be invisible, so he picked up a bucket full of oats as he went and with his head held high he marched right up to his father's tent. 

"Mihangel?" The voice was behind him and it was enough to make him turn, "Mihangel, is that you?"

It had been near four months since Stiles had been called that, long past the point where he called himself that in his own head, but he turned around to see Camden, one of his elder brothers, one of the alphas that was in line for his father's throne. Camden was one of those that looked most like his father. He was tall and thin, with sandy blonde hair and the same hooked nose as his father but without his piercing gaze, the one that fixed his enemies in place like an adder. "Hello, Camden," Stiles said, "I came to see Father."

Camden pulled him into his arms, bucket and all, "look at you, your hair," he ruffled his hand over it, it was a mess of finger length cowlicks and in doing so it revealed the points of his ears which he had been so careful to keep hidden, "you've gotten so grown up and so thin, come, Father was beside himself, come," and clamping his hand on Stiles' shoulder he marched him, still holding his bucket, into the tent.

Deucalion had a presence. 

It was that presence that people first noticed about him. He existed and people moved towards him like they were in orbit, like the sun around the earth. To his left was Ennis, as huge as Stiles remembered him, and other alpha lords. The expeditionary force he had taken to Faoilleach was small but it was clear he could call on all of his bondsmen quickly and without argument. "Father," Camden said, dropping to one knee as was proper but still meeting his father's gaze, "look who I found."

Stiles did not bow or curtsey. 

He did not take the knee in front of his king. 

He stood there, frozen, as fixed in place as a rabbit in front of an adder, and his mouth, never one to be short of words, betrayed him and left him silent. The moment stretched out like taffy, on and on before the king spoke.

"Camden, do you trust that your brother shall not flee again or should I have him put in irons?"

Camden seemed surprised and went to protest when Stiles spoke.

"Father," he said, meeting his father's grey gaze without blinking, he could be strong, he told himself. This was all because of him and he had to be the one to fix it.

"Do you not kneel before your king?" Ennis asked.

Stiles fiddled with the bracelet on his wrist, hoping for strength in the way that the amber caught the light. "I am Vidame," he said with all of the fear in him pushed down as hard as it is, "and you will address me as such, vassal," he tried to imitate Peter, "I answer only to my lord," he said, "and not a man who puts words in his king's mouth."

To the side Stilinski- a tall man with the same broad shoulders as Stiles but sandy blonde hair and blue eyes- snickered. There were rumours, persistent even now nearly twenty years later, that Stilinski was Stiles' father and that was the reason that he had chosen Stiles as his cognomen. He had always enjoyed when Stiles had a clever mouth that he would not get into trouble for. He had even defended him a time or two.

Deucalion raised a hand to silence Ennis when he went to speak again. He stood up from where he had been bent over maps of what looked like Faoilleach and sat down on his camp chair, templing his fingers before his face with his elbows on the campaign chair - it was a position Stiles knew well enough. Whenever his bad behaviour had seen Matilda try to get his father to discipline him he always took the same position. It made Stiles want to squirm but he reminded himself there was too much at stake. This was his mess and he had to clean it up himself.

"Then talk," Deucalion said. He spoke evenly, with just enough charm that he bound people to him with loyalty like chains. Men followed him and died for him gladly. "Tell me, Vidame, exactly what you have to say."

Stiles licked his lips, taking the opportunity to pause and look for the words. "Why are you here?" He asked. He was worrying the bracelet on his wrist, turning it over and over.

"Why should I not hunt down my son?" Deucalion asked calmly, "why shouldn't I use all of my available resources to find my errant offspring?" From behind him Theo came into the light looking so afraid that he might soil himself. 

Stiles pulled himself up to his full height, "Father, are you here to find your son? Or are you here to reclaim your lost property?" Stiles couldn't back down, if he did all was lost. The Hales thought him safe. They had been so kind, he couldn't let his father destroy them. He couldn't let this army that his father had gathered sweep through the town. He couldn't.

"You have your mother's smart mouth," Ennis muttered under his breath and although Stilinski went to react it was Deucalion who reacted, quick as a snake he slammed the knife from his belt between Ennis' spread fingers on the campaign table in a threat. Ennis pulled back his hand, unharmed but clearly reminded of his place.

"Leave us," Deucalion said. 

"My lord," Ennis protested.

"Do you think that my omega son is going to harm me, Ennis? Are you scared that he might murder me in my sleep when he doesn't even have a belt knife? Go!" Everyone left the tent but Stilinski was sure to meet Stiles' eyes and drag his hand over his shoulder, an old fashioned scenting technique that he had done when Stiles was just a small child, trailing after his mother and her guardian. It reassured Stiles more than he could let show.

When they were gone Deuclaion lost none of the hardness that had defined him, he gestured to one of the other chairs. "I should have you whipped until you cannot sit," he said, "but you know that I will not. You will tell me why the Hales took you from me."

Stiles blinked, processing what his father had said, "you were misinformed, Father, I was not taken, I left of my own accord." He was sure to correct that misconception. The Hales were blameless.

"Was I not kind?" Deucalion sounded hurt, "did I not give you all that you might want, did I not treat you as you felt was your due?" He could not understand. He had understood that a clan in the Highlands might steal a valuable omega, but that that omega might leave of his own accord was not something he had ever considered. "What was it that they promised you? did you think i would not match it? Do you think so little of me? I have been distant, certainly, but..."

"I was told you would marry me to Ennis, and that he would kill me," Stiles blurted it out, "I ran because I did not want to marry him, and knew that if I stayed I would have no choice. I wanted to give us distance that I might negotiate."

"Mihangel," he said, "why would I marry you to Ennis?" he asked. "You were terrified of him, everyone in court knew it, how you shied away from even walking past him. I would not do that to you." He tilted his head as he considered what he was told. "You were lied to, someone sought to ruin you, but who, did they want to force me to marry you?"

"Tatton Halle," Stiles said, he had had enough time to consider it, "if I was ruined then Tatton Halle would no longer be my dowry, you would bestow it on one of my brothers and it is valuable land."

Deucalion pondered this, "the Argents have long since coveted it, and the young Allison is of marriageable age, so who in my household works for them?" Deucalion had managed his throone as long as he had because he was brilliant at seeing connections that others would not. 

"Does it matter?" Stiles asked, "you are sure that I am ruined."

"Are you?" The question hung in the air like a stink.

Stiles' gaze fell to his feet, "The Hales found me," he told him, trying to avoid the question, "they have been nothing but kind, Harli, my dog," he looked at his father, "they let me train to be an apothecary and have been so kind, Father, they knew that you would be angry and offered me a place to stay regardless. Please, father, if I ever meant anything to you, let me remain here. I am useful and Lady Hale, she doesn't speak Scots, or English, and I am her companion. You would not be angry if you saw how kind they were."

"Mihangel," Deucalion cut him off, he poured himself a cup of water from the jug on the campaign table but Stiles knew it for a distraction tactic, "you know that is not what the law requires of us."

"You are the king, change the law," Stiles shouted back.

"You are my son," the king responded, "and for once in your life can you do what you are told. You will come back with us and that will be the end of it."

"I can't," Stiles protested, angry and scared and Harli was in the castle and how was he to fetch her when the Hales didn't know where he was, and he wanted her with him so much right now, he wanted to bury his hands in her rough fur and know that she was there and that she loved him, and Mistress McCall had so much copying left to do, and Lydia didn't speak a lnaguage that she could communicate with, and Rachel's knees pained her so much and Stiles' salve helped and so he blurted out the first thing that came to his head. "I can't, I'm married, I'm married to derek Hale," and he held aloft the bracelet that Derek had given him, the one that was too fine for a gift to a bondsman but was perfect for a bride knowing that it would silence his father's complaints.

He had said it, he had lied to his father, and worse yet he had implicated Derek, and Peter would either have to approve of the lie or deny him and if he denied him Stiles didn't know what would happen, only that his damn fool mouth had gotten him into the situation.


	22. Chapter 22

Deucalion had Stiles taken from his tent with one of the ladies who accompanied his army, and he was dressed as suited the omega child of a king. He half expected to be forced to wash but they didn't bother, they put him in shirt and cotehardie and surcoat and gathered his hair up under a scarf, which was what was done for married omega. They gushed over how soft his hands were even as they put sage oil on his skinned palms, and brushed perfumes through his hair, and found jewelry to complete the image of a king's omega child. Deucalion had never kept his wealth from Stiles.

"My sister," Stiles started, "was she delivered of the baby?" He hadn't heard any news of her for these past months and he might not have wanted to admit it, even to himself, but he did miss his family. The Hales were kind but they were not family.

"A fine alpha son," one of the women said as she pulled out her embroidery, to work beside the brazier under the light and serving very much as a guard, "large and bonny, she has already returned to court." That reassured him because he had always admired Sydney and people died in childbed. Sydney was beautiful and kind and she had once had a kitten that would chase the end of her braid when she moved and it had made Stiles laugh and laugh until he would roll over on the rug and then Harli, still a puppy, would pounce on him as if he was prey and lick his face until he couldn't breathe for laughing, and Sydney never told him to stop laughing, instead she'd hold out the end of her braid for the kitten to chase - just to hear him laugh.

He was sat next to a brazier as the women, beta wives of some of the lords which accompanied their king, knowing he was going to recover his omega son who would need his own coterie until they returned, sat with their embroidery. There was a citole sitting on a chest and one of the women frowned as he stood up, smoothing out his skirts and crossing the rug to pick it up.

He sat down back on the stool and picked at it a few times to test it's tuning before he began to sing. His voice wavering at first and having to repeat a few lines until he was more confident, choosing a song that reminded him of safety and home, one that he hadn't thought to sing to Derek, but one his mother had sung to him when he was safe and secure in her lap where bad things never happened.

"Someone speaks and the sound of their voice is kind of like yours.   
Someone laughs and the sound of their laugh is kind of like yours.   
Up until that moment of time,   
I was happy right out of my mind.   
Now that greatness is gone from sight,   
Again I see you walk out of my life.   
Suddenly my heart feels sunless,   
Moonless. Unilluminated night.   
And darkness falls in the middle of my day.   
Darkness falls in the middle of my day.   
Someone walks and the sound of their footsteps are kind of like yours.   
Someone waves and the shape of their form is kind of like yours.   
That's when the tears gather in my eyes.   
Like it all comes gathered in the sky.   
My heart's turning inside out.   
And again I see you walking out.   
Suddenly my heart feels sunless,   
Moonless. Unilluminated night.   
And darkness falls in the middle of my day.   
Darkness falls in the middle of my day."

"I had not thought your voice so sweet," Stilinski said from the doorway, "you look most like your mother when you sing. She sat in the same way, head tilted just so." He was so large and solid that Stiles wanted to wrap himself around him because he was solid enough to weather whatever storms might come. "That was her favorite song."

"I remember her singing it to me, it felt appropriate tonight," he said, the heels of his hands still stung from where he had fallen and so he rested his hands over the citole with his palms raised, it made him look more vulnerable. "Can you leave us?" he asked the ladies, "I doubt that Sir Noah will aid me in any escape plan I have in store."

There was some muttering but they did leave, "you scared us, kid," Stilinski said, sitting down on one of the other benches, "do you want to tell us why. Your father thinks you might talk to me more readily than him."

Stiles wanted to cry, he was tired, and he was still recovering although he was mostly returned to health and Harli was somewhere in the castle and not here and he had made such a mess of things. "I," he started, "It's all gone so wrong, and I don't know how to fix it, and it's all gone awry." He stared at the rug, trying to find the words. "I did a stupid thing and it just kept getting worse and then I didn't know what to do and I was so scared and the Hales were so kind, they have been so kind to me, and Father is going to do terrible things but I didn't tell them, I didn't tell them who I was, and I thought that maybe Peter knew, because Peter always knows, and it's just, I don't know, and you're going to shout at me and I don't want you to shout at me but if you do then I know it's over and I can move on and I don't know that I want to and I don't know what is going through my mind except that I want my dog."

He paused again, scrubbing his hands over his face and fighting as hard as he could not to sob. "I've made such a mess of things, Tata," he said, he hadn't called Noah that since he was a child on leading strings, trailing after his father, "and I don't know how to fix things, and I'm so sorry"

Noah pulled him into his embrace where things felt safe and solid and nothing bad could ever happen. He always smelled of horses and rust and fresh cut grass and he would put his hand on the back of his neck and it always felt like it fixed Stiles in place and stopped him flying into a hundred thousand pieces. "It all went wrong so fast and everything I did just made it worse and then there was the Hales and they were so kind, even when they weren't they were kind and Harli is with them and Lydia is so scared and it's just, I'm so sorry."

Noah let him cry, let him sob into the shoulder of his pourpoint jacket and then sat him down, with a kerchief and a cup of wine from the counter. "I'm here now, tell me what happened, start at the beginning, Deucalion said you left because someone told you that you were going to marry Ennis, like either me or your father would let that happen, we know how he scares you, who told you that?"

There was a window, an opportunity for Stiles to reveal everything, to tell Noah about Theo and how Stiles had gotten his instructions all wrong and how Theo was really looking out for him but the lie came to his mouth easily, "I heard the servants talking, they said there was a priory in Carlisle and I was so scared, I wasn't thinking straight, I thought that if I went to Carlisle I could negotiate, Father always listens more if you bring something to the table, so I was going to bring  _me_."

Noah was always patient. He had loved Stiles' mother, Stiles had known that his entire life, and the rumors that he was Noah's natural born son, not Deucalion's but he also remembered Deucalion making his mother laugh, and how they were friends if nothing else. Noah had always been there for Stiles and he had left him behind and he probably had hurt him although he had not meant to. He just felt so much that it made him exhausted. "I thought, if I went to Carlisle I could argue with him, but when I got there I couldn't find the priory, and I didn't know what to do, I had no chaperone and anything could have happened and thank god it did not," Noah joined him in that thanks, "and I was so embarrassed and scared and I couldn't think straight and I just, I thought, if I pretend to be a beta I might be able to find work." 

"You sold your things in Carlisle," Noah offered.

"Yes, I had no money, and if I went back I was ruined and no one would believe me that I was not, why would they, and then I wasn't even good enough for Ennis," he sobbed again, "so I went north, I thought it wouldn't matter, I could be a crofter or something."

"And the Hales found you?"

"I was sick," Stiles said, "I was so sick, I hadn't eaten in days and when I did I threw up, and then I got my courses and I kept passing out and I was in the woods and I thought I was going to die and then no one would look after Harli and I didn't know what to do and I built a fire, and that's when Peter found me, he gave me porridge and boiled water and clean clothes, and when he took me back to Faoilleach, he took me to Mistress Melissa who is a doctor, she trained in Salerno, and she made me well again. I was working with her, copying her manuscripts, and helping Heather with the deliveries and I helped deliver a baby and it was terrifying and amazing, and Peter made sure I was chaperoned, and they looked after Harli and everyone spoiled her, and she runs with the other dogs and I left her behind," that came with another sob as all the emotion and fear just overwhelmed him. He was so tired he didn't know what else to do.

"And Lord Hale?" Noah asked.

Stiles started to worry the heavy bracelet on his wrist, the gold dark enough it looked like bronze and the chunks of Rus amber that caught the light. He was silent for a few long moments and then took a deep breath into his nose, followed by him blowing it on the kerchief Noah had given him before. "He's melancholic," Stiles said, "and his leg is wounded, he was in the crusades. He went with his brothers and sisters and was the only one to come home. He had to bring them home in tiny silver coffers containing their hearts and when he got home his mother had died."

"That would be enough to bring any man to melancholy," Stiles knew what Noah was doing, he was saying just enough that Stiles would fill in the blanks, that Stiles would tell him what happened. And Stiles told him.

"There was an accident in Italy," he said, "he nearly lost his leg, he had to wait and maybe if he had not he might have been able to say goodbye to his mother, but he couldn't, and I made him wear a brace, he wouldn't walk because it hurt him and using the crutch made him feel weak but I made him get fitted for a brace so he could walk with just a stick, and I became his doctor, I learned to make poultices and rubs of yarrow and comfrey and peppermint that would be rubbed into his leg to make it hurt less."

"Is that why you married him?" Stiles was caught in the lie, he was so scared his father would not let him remain in Faoilleach that it had come out of him without him realizing it and he was stuck.

"He's a good man, Tata," he said, "he's kind and good, but he's so sad, we're married and we talk, and Harli makes him laugh, he says I don't eat enough, and that my hair is too long and too short all at once, and he calls me his angel, he has a guard called Boyd, and he's from a place called Morocco and he met him in the crusades and he speaks all of these languages."

"Has he hurt you?"

"Never intentionally," That Stiles could be honest about, "I was sick, after I got there, there was a sickness in the crofters, some of them died, I took sick, I fainted, and Harli wailed like I was murdered and they found me and he stayed with me when I was fevered and I had to be packed in ice, they were scared I was going to die, but he sat with me." That was a half-truth, Boyd had been there, and Peter had sat with Stiles he was told, Derek had tried but he had been sent away on several occasions because Peter had wanted to preserve the myth that he was a beta, but he had needed Boyd to carry down the bath from Derek's tower room. "I had stitches in my head, look," he moved his hair to show the scar. "I know how to make a honey poultice now, and what herbs are. I like Faoilleach, Tata," he said, "not just because they're kind but I'm useful, they need me."

"It's not been easy for you, Mihangel," Noah said, "you've been through the mangle a time or two."

"I deserve it," Stiles answered, "I did a terrible, stupid thing, and"

Noah cut him off, "if God punishes people with sickness for being stupid then there is a fair few in your father's court that would never leave their sick bed."

Stiles smiled.

"Your father has asked to speak to Peter Hale, will he corroborate your story? If your father thinks they snatched you he will be ruthless, you know that" Noah's calm was exactly what was needed. Stiles did know it, Deucalion would raze the castle to the ground, and he would do it in Stiles' name.

"It's the truth," Stiles protested, "they call me Stiles because I didn't tell them my name, they didn't know who my father was They didn't snatch me, they saved me."

"Your father received a letter from Faoilleach," Noah said, "do you think Peter sent it?"

Stiles considered all of the options, "Peter would have told me," he said, "we had supper together most nights so we could talk, chaperoned, of course, although he is married, he never asked me who my parents were, or to which house that I claimed fealty, so I don't think it was Peter. What did the letter say?"

"I didn't read it," Noah admitted, "but your father told me that the letter said that they had heard of his missing child and that the Hale family had a new omega in their household who needed to be reminded of their place in their own family."

"Madame Blake," Stiles hissed it out. When it was clear that Noah had no idea who that was he continued, "she's a guest of the Hales, she was supposed to marry Derek's brother but he died in the crusade and her family wouldn't take her back or were bankrupt, every time I heard the story it was different. She wanted to marry Derek so her place would be secure."

"And you were a threat to that?" Noah asked.

"I spoke to her maybe three times in all the time I was in Faoilleach, and I don't think I saw Derek speak to her once, she asked me about megrims, I don't know why she would write to Father," he left it open.

"She might be trying to catch herself a more influential husband or lover," Noah told him, "guarantee her position that way, and even if you weren't the omega that news told that Deucalion was looking for he would come to check allowing her to be introduced to him."

"But Peter hasn't invited you into the castle, he put a guard on me and Lydia, I had to escape," Stiles protested.

"So now the Hales are looking for you as well, oh, Mihangel," he sighed, "you have your mother's penchant for mischief, she wanted to call you that," he said it in the same way that he had always said "what are we going to do with you" and the same meaning.

"I told you," Stiles offered, "I've made a terrible mess of this."

Noah sighed and then rubbed the pad of his thumb over Stiles' cheek, wiping away the tearstains, "the thing about messes, son, is that they can be cleaned up."


	23. Chapter 23

Stiles not sure if any night had felt as long as this one did, to the point he was unsure of the time and guessed that it was past Vespers. However, with all the furor the camp was still active as if it was the middle of the day. He was left mostly to his own devices with at least one of the ladies watching over him, and a guard on the door when Theo entered the tent that his father had given to his captivity.

Theo, unlike Camden, wore leather armor over his pourpoint jacket, and he had a sword belted to his hip, "leave us," he commanded but no one moved.

"He's my brother," Stiles said, "he won't let harm come to me," he almost purred the next comment, "would you, Theo?"

With Noah and his father Stiles had felt safe, able to be himself in a way that was true, but with Theo all of those barriers and armors that he had learned came crashing down so hard that it was wonder that they could not be heard. He had learned in Faoilleach how to close himself off, how to be part of the kitchen girls with their harmless mockery, but also how to let insults wash over him as he forced one of the elderly members of the keep to raise their legs letting him bring snips down on their awful toenails. He had helped with postulants who were dying of leprosy with their skin rotting off their flesh and the smell of them. He had helped women deliver and sang softly to those that died in his arms given Mistress McCall's final balm, the one that eased their way into death. He had become a healer in Faoilleach and he had had time. He had had nothing but time all of those long evenings when he tried to make those long stockings for Derek and with his hands busy his mind could wander.

 He had left his father's keep quiet and taught to still his curiosity, but he had been shown the entire breadth of all humanity, from Derek's desire, such as it was, to birth and death and Melissa telling him to smell a wound to see if the bowels were ruptured and he could be eager, and learn from that eagerness - even if it was only that he learned that he found a thing disgusting. 

If they had the knowledge they shared it with him; no matter how awful or devastating that information was.

Over his time in the apothecary's apartment he had gone over everything that Theo had told him, looked at it from every angle that he could in the dark with his fingers buried in Harli's coarse fur. He had tried to understand, he had imagined conversations as he considered everything when there was nothing between him and the dark.

"You didn't tell Father," Theo said when they were alone.

"No," Stiles said, "I didn't," and continued plucking aimlessly at the citole, "I didn't see the point."

Theo narrowed his eyes and took the stool that Noah had sat on, facing him, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He waited a few moments before he spoke with a little smugness in his tone. "You did well enough out of it. Married to a clan lord, what more could an omega want?"

"A brother who wouldn't send me out to be murdered or worse would be nice," Stiles said, "because you knew that there was no priory in Carlisle, what did you think would happen next?"

"I supposed you'd come back with your tail between your legs, ruined, and not as valuable,"

"at least you're being honest with me," Stiles said, "I hadn't decided what to do," he held out his hand holding it flat, "would I be kind?" he turned his hand to the left, "or would I be just?" He closed his fist.

"You're still a mewling omega, hiding behind his skirts," Theo snarled.

"I had time, brother," Stiles said, "you destroyed me, but you left me time." The way he said it time sounded like a weapon.

"You were supposed to come back, I didn't want you hurt, I just wanted," he cut himself off.

Stiles' voice was calm as he finished the sentence. "Tatton Halle," he said. Theo flinched like he had been struck. "I told you," Stiles repeated, "I had time. Time to think about all the things you told me, all the things I wasn't meant to hear because I was sitting embroidering and quiet, Father's expensive little oddity, I had time to piece together the puzzle, scribbled it out on birchbark until it all made perfect sense. I had two treasures, mother's pendant and Tatton Halle, promised to whoever Father chose to be my alpha." His grin was a slow, vicious thing, a thing learned at Peter's knee in those long games of Farkle. "I never removed her pendant, so it had to be Tatton Halle, and the only person who had eyes for it was the Argents, but I never knew why."

Theo said nothing, letting Stiles finish what he had learned, "you see Tatton Halle is no good to the Argents, the land is unfit for farming the way that they do, I wondered if they knew about something we didn't, maybe a gold or tin mine, and then I realised it was never about Tatton Halle at all, it was about getting someone in on Father's court, all of those alpha brothers and there, right next door, is a beautiful princess, fierce and lovely, and her grandfather's to give away to those who would deliver him Tatton Halle. All of those brothers and one of them would be stupid enough to betray his brother, nothing permanent surely, but just enough that they could negotiate with father, they could present an alliance." He watched Theo's face as he talked. 

"I don't know if they realized that they would be Gerard's man on the inside," Stiles continued, "with pretty little Allison whispering in their ear, doing things that wouldn't seem to help him, but would add up, brick by brick, but then something went wrong. I didn't come back." 

He let the silence drag out like taffy, soft and indulgent and all his to control.

"I was so scared when I found myself in Carlisle and there was no priory, I thought I'd gotten your instructions wrong, that I had made it all go wrong and I was so scared, the only thing I knew for certain was that Harli was with me. I had no money, nothing but the clothes on my back. Do you know what that's like?" He cut Theo off before he spoke. "Of course not, you're not a mewling omega. So do you know what I decided, that I would go to Iona, because they offered sanctuary there, and even omega would be welcomed there. I cut off my hair, Theo, and it was among the hardest things I ever did, do you know what it was like to cut away the last thing that made me look like my mother?"

Stiles watched his brother. 

For long moments neither of them spoke. "You've changed," Theo said, finally.

"I had to," Stiles answered, he couldn't help the flare of anger as he said it. "I couldn't be the soft little omega that I was before, I wouldn't have survived, so I changed, I learned how to act, I learned how to thrive, and the Hales allowed me to. They were kinder than my own brother, and tell me now, why didn't I tell Father, Theo? You made the plan, surely you had some plan for me coming back, something to make sure I wouldn't say who had sent me to Carlisle that day."

What color Theo had drained from his face under the collar of his leather jacket. 

"Would you have killed me to keep me quiet? or perhaps tried to convince him that I was quite mad, that in being ruined I had lost my mind, that I didn't know what I was saying," his smile was a rictus, a cold thing with no give in it. He looked every inch the perfect society omega, calm and quiet with his hands folded around the citole, an instrument best suited to omegas. "Do you want to know why I didn't tell, Father?" He tilted his head, looking so much like Peter Hale in the way that he moved, the alpha lord that everyone in Faoilleach loved and feared in equal measure.  He had never used that coldness in Stiles but Stiles had seen it and recognized that darkness in himself, but Theo had underestimated him. Theo for all of his machinations had seen this coming and Stiles knew that power and used it.

He used that power as carefully as Mistress McCall used her obsidian scalpel and with as much purpose.

He was absolute and clear.

"Because now you know that I know. I don't need to use that information now, but there might come a time when I do, and until then you will never know when it is that I might destroy you."

"You aren't that cruel," Theo hissed it out from gritted teeth.

"Not cruel, brother, practical, it is getting late, and I am expecting that I shall be summoned to Father's side soon. Peter Hale will have learned that I have escaped his care and knows there is only one place that I would go. He will arrive soon and there will be the usual alpha posturing and both will need me to be present so that they can show off what virile alphas they are, and my mari will want to know that I am well and that I did not fall to my death when I escaped, and want to know how it was that I did. He knows that I will return, I would never leave Harli unless I planned to return." When Theo didn't stand up. "That was your cue to leave, if you couldn't tell."

Theo didn't see the way he sucked in a deep breath and his entire body almost collapsed in on itself. He had not realised how much effort it took to be seen as ruthless when it wasn't your nature. He just hoped Theo bought it.

He was surprised he had that capacity within himself for he had not thought that he could be that cold but he stepped into it like an old pair of shoes, finding the comfort there but little in the way of support.  He strummed out a few notes on the citole as he thought about it. He could be ruthless but he didn't care for it.

But leaving Theo unsure of his place and scared of what would happen when their father discovered the truth was worth the discomfort. Theo deserved so much more for what he had done, and this way he wasn't Argent's puppet in Deucalion's court.

As if their father would allow Theo to marry an Argent, he thought, even if he eloped with the girl he'd just pack her back to her grandfather with husband in tow with the words - they're your problem now. Perhaps that was why Theo wanted Tatton Halle, it was between the two lands. Argent wanted it because it was Deucalion's, Stiles shook his head and was still frowning when the lady who was watching over him  came in.

"I know he's your brother, lamb," everyone used that sort of dimunitive around him, he realised, because he was an omega and therefore soft and gentle and to be protected, "but that boy gives me conniptions."

"He's manipulative and cruel," Stiles said. "More cruel than I knew for a long time,"  then he brightened, "Has Lord Peter arrived yet, with news of my husband?" The lie was in place, Stiles had no choice but to go along with it. Perhaps Derek would even go along with it until Deucalion's men were long gone from his lands. Stiles didn't think he would want any more with, Stiles had rejected him and lied to him and to an extent manipulated him as much as Theo had manipulated Stiles. He would understand if Derek wanted nothing more to do with him, and without thinking his hand went to his bracelet, feeling the almost knitted braid of the wire that made it up under his thumb. 

It was too much like madness to consider it more than that.

"Not yet, lamb," she said taking her mending from one of the pockets of her apron, a socking with a mushroom shaped tool for stretching out the heel, she even had a curved needle to do the stitching. Dresses had many disadvantages but pockets were something that pants lacked, if they had pockets they were small things, barely able to hold a kerchief, where if he was wearing a sideless surcoat or giaour he could stuff a kerchief, a scone, a small book, some sheets of birchbark and charcoal, wrapped in cloth to prevent them staining the fabric, and still have room for his hands if they were cold.

He would simply have to wait. At worst, by morning Peter would have come.


	24. Chapter 24

It was late morning, and coming up on noon when Stiles was sent for by his father. Camden made sure he was put together and led him across the camp, with a fur around his shoulders and wrapped around his feet against the snow which had fallen during the night. He did not slough them off when he went into his father's tent although the air inside was quite warm.

Sat on one side of the campaign table, with a lamp illuminating them warmly, was Deucalion and Noah, sat with arms crossed and looking like they were moments from violence. Across the campaign table was Peter and Derek, Derek had a small cushion for his leg, and behind them like a threatening shadow was Boyd. Sat beside him with her tongue lolling out at all her favorite people being gathered in a single place was Harli who, when she saw Stiles, bounded forward and damn near knocked him to his ass. Stiles buried his face in her neck and then pressed his forehead against hers, "I missed you too, girl, I promise, I'll never leave you again, my pretty girl, oh I missed you."

Camden put his hand on Stiles' shoulder, muttering that he had to stand up, that this wasn't about Harli. He did stand but his hand remained on her shoulder. 

"Mihangel," Deucalion said and it was the calm even tone he used mostly when he was doing his best to be without weakness, the one that sounded faintly amused. "If you would take a seat," he gestured to a stool placed so it was equidistant from both parties. It looked like a lot of the posturing had already taken place.

Stiles sat, ankles demurely crossed, with Harli beside him like a lion, her head butting against his shoulder, and her tongue hanging out as she panted loudly. She had mud that was flecked up her sides, dried, possibly from the run she had been taken on before she came here. She had to have been fed and exercised or she wouldn't have sat so quietly, not with so many people she liked about. It was something of a surprise that she didn't want to play, she just kept reminding Stiles to not stop scratching her between her shoulder blades where she liked it best.

Peter was the one how broke the silence, "it's good to see you well," he said to Stiles, "that color suits you."

"Pockets," Stiles said with a grin, it had been a long conversation with Peter about how he missed pockets, "I don't know what to do with all the space."

"You never did tell us why you did not return to your gowns when you went to Faoilleach," Deucalion mispronounced the name of the castle, either by intent or mistake Stiles didn't know.

"Because it would have meant everyone treated me differently, I needed help from Mistress McCall and offered her help with her transcription in exchange, but she thought I would be better used treating those who wouldn't let her treat them because she was a woman, and they would have refused me if they had realised that I was an omega, so leaving me in pants was a simple expedience, those who needed to know did know."

Deucalion accepted the answer with a  nod, "nevertheless, I am not sure that I am content for you to represent my court in the rags you were wearing." He looked across at Peter, "do we have an agreement that when his chores for the day are complete he is to return to his gowns."

"I think it would better for him to make that decision," Peter answered, "but I have no issue with it, it is merely convention that requires omegas to wear dresses, and the church already frowns on male omega to such an extent I hardly think substituting his wardrobe for something finer would make much of an outcry, do you, majesty?"

"That would be a happy compromise," Noah said, "don't you think so, majesty?" It looked like he had been playing peacemaker all morning, and Stiles was glad of it. He had always known Noah was in his shadow, making sure that he was well and happy, just as he had for Stiles' mother.

"As long as the wardrobe is of sufficient quality," Deucalion said, "he is my legitimate son, and he should be treated as deserves someone of his standing. Noah has made it clear that Mihangel lives up to his name in that he wishes to do the best for the people in front of him, those he loves he loves fiercely and learning physick is something that suits such intelligence and fierceness." He tilted his head as he spoke, appraising the Hales with their kilts, legs spread, and Derek's leather brace. "He is a prince, after all, not a clansman."

Stiles watched both of the Hale men bristle but politely said nothing. "By your leave, majesty," Derek said, sitting forward, "he is a clansman now, and it is his decision, the Hale wealth is his to spend as he wishes, such is the arrangement we made," there had been negotiations then, Stiles inferred, and this was just the last of it. "Your son ran from your home and your rule, and we took him in, we offered him sanctuary and a home. He is Hale clan now," he looked across at Stiles and there was no softness in his gaze so Stiles turned his face into the curve of Harli's neck so he wouldn't have to look at him and see the way he saw him now.

Deucalion looked at his son, noting the way Stiles seemed chastised with just a gaze.

"Mihangel," Noah said, "you are being uncharacteristically quiet."

Stiles opened his mouth a few times to talk but no words came out, before he said, "it is all too much of a piece," he said, "it is like a madness. What else can I say?"

"Son," Noah said and his voice was that soft fond tone that he had used when Stiles was scared or overwhelmed. He had called all of the male children in the keep son in that same way, so Stiles knew it wasn't an endearment meant for him even if he had wanted it to, "this is your future, don't you want some say in it?"

Again the words escaped Stiles. "I've made my bed," he said, letting Harli rest her big head on his lap, ruffling the fur on the edges as she breathed in great huffing sighs, "I have to lie in it."

Deucalion had just been lifting his cup to drink when he put it back on the table with an audible clunk. "Mihangel," he said the name carefully, "I wronged you, although not by intent by inattention. The Hales have explained everything surrounding your marriage to me, the circumstances and the necessity, that you refused to tell them from which court you had come and so married you to their Laird for your protection." Stiles could hear his anger boiling under his calm seeming tone. "They have offered you every kindness. Do you wish to return with me, to have the marriage dissolved, or do you want to return to them?"

Stiles looked at Harli so he didn't have to look at either of them, his heavy bangle banging against the knob of his wrist, and his skin had lost the creamy look of someone who had never really worked, all those hours working for Mistress McCall had given him calluses and even scars. He had become a confident knitter, if not a strong one, and his tension was almost always even. He had read fantastic books that sat in the hale apothecary subject to damp and had learned to iron the vellum. He had become important through the work, something he had never been before. He had been valuable, a rare and expensive trinket, but with the Hales he was necessary.

It was the image of those work hardened hands that made the decision.

He knew if he returned to Faoilleach he would return to the role of Mistress McCall's apprentice, he would be denied things like marriage and children, but he could share in the children of the keep. He could help Rachel with her knees, and Mistress McCall with her transcription and even scrubbing the floors with Heather. He could do those things that Heather did for the old people, even bathing the truly old. He would be necessary and important and invisible. He could become that part of himself he had not wanted to face, ascetic, loveless and cold. 

He could stay with his father. He could marry where he was told and bear children to his alpha, he could manage an estate, if his alpha's omega parent was not still alive - but then he couldn't meet Peter for their nightly games of Farkle. He could be the perfect omega prince, bringing glory to his father and maybe even living in Tatton Halle, to the teeth grinding consternation of the Argents.

Or he could be a Hale.

The choice was simple. "Father, I would like to stay with the Hales," he said and as soon as the words were said he was so sure of it that he felt like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. His entire posture improved, and Harli whined at his hands tightening in her coarse fur.

Deucalion regarded his son as a political equal, and not just a boy. He could see that his Mihangel was not the one that had returned to him the previous night. Peter had called him Stiles and, for a long moment, he wondered if that was how he would address him. "I shall say this once, Hale," he said instead, "we agreed that if he ever wished to leave you would let him return to me, complete with a guard. If I learn you have hurt a single hair on his head I shall raze your clan from this earth. He is my son and he is to be treated as such. Are we clear?"

Peter, not Derek, agreed that they were, but Derek's eyes were on Stiles.

 

\---

"I'm unsure which of the women of the castle is more angry at you right now," Peter said as they walked, Stiles ensconced between them so there was no hope of escape, still in the formal gowns of an omega prince, with his hair demurely covered and wearing jewels. The rest of his dowry would follow soon after.

"And you're not angry?" Stiles was hopeful.

"Oh, Stiles, I'm long past angry," he turned his head and it was clear he had a sort of cold burning rage and that Stiles would not long hear the end of it, but he would not hurt him, his anger was worse than that.

"Hn," Derek had a way of expressing his anger in a noise, Stiles knew it well from their conversations, Derek had said that he got angry and the words just ran away unless he was mocking; unless he wanted to demean a person, and so if he didn't want to he just went quiet. Well, apart from the angry sighs and the same sort of huffing noises that Harli made.

"I know my father," Stiles blurted out, "he would have done something terrible, he doesn't understand, he can't, and he just...."

"Enough," Peter barked the word out, "it's too late for that," he continued, "the good news is that I can lie well enough when pressed, considering that I do not care to." Peter said it quietly as they climbed the incline to the castle proper, "and I was already so pissed that we might have gone to war just so I could hit something," Peter's voice rose into a roar on the last word and Stiles physically flinched. "I spent last night reassuring more women than I care to that you weren't murdered and in a ditch, and then this morning I find out you've escaped and not run off, like a sensible person, no you go and tell the scourge of the north that we bullied you into a marriage I couldn't deny for fear of losing face in what was not so much a negotiation as a fucking standoff. You are so lucky that this was the path of least bloodshed, I should take you to the West Tower and lock you into it with only bread and water and I would if I wasn't sure that Rachel would sneak you food herself and with her knees,"  he paused, then took a deep breath. "I don't want to even look at you, right now."

Derek made another noise and that was when Stiles noticed that he was walking abreast with Harli, who was repeating the same angry noises that he was. It made a small chirrup of laughter bubble up in his throat which was as much a panic response as a genuine reaction to it. The noise made Derek scowl more.

"Boyd," Peter said, "take him to the apothecary and pack his things."

"Are you sending me away?" Stiles blurted out.

"You declared to the Butcher of Birmingham that you were married to Derek, where the fuck do you think I'm sending you, I'm going to have to have Rachel prepare a second wedding feast that the Demon King is invited to as if she doesn't have enough to do." His hands were making fists at his hips. "You are married now, boy, and you will behave as a good mari should."

Stiles turned to Derek, "I'm so sorry," he said, the words falling out of his mouth, "I."

Derek just deepened his scowl and walked on past him as if he wasn't even there.


	25. Chapter 25

Stiles was not long given to leisure before he was summoned, not by Derek, as he had assumed that he would be, but by Lydia who, it seemed, was very distraught and angry over his absence and it was guessed that his safe return would ease her mind. He had just been given enough time to change his clothes, back to the comfortable pants that she was used to seeing him in.

She was on her favorite chair before the fire, she was using a hook set into the fireplace to hold her weaving which was fixed to her belt and she seemed to work the heddle angrily. Paige sat beside her, on a stool instead of a chair, looking to be changing the gussets in a shift with the white linen spread over her knees as she worked with a bone needle. Neither woman seemed happy to be doing nothing with their hands. Lydia had her hair covered decorously but when she saw Stiles she touched the woven leather band which held it in place. "Do you think it would matter if I did not cover my hair?" she asked. Harli lumbered over to the mat under the stool where she had rested her feet to give her weaving tension and collapsed with a noise that was not unlike Derek's angry sighs, although considering how she rolled over and let her tongue fall out it was clear she wasn't angry.

"I don't think that anyone would care," Stiles answered, taking the other seat, "I think the Hales don't care much for that sort of thing."

"I imagine I would cause a stir if I showed up in pants with my head uncovered when I walked into the courtyard."

"I think that the stir would be because you had left your rooms," Stiles answered, he pulled his knitting from his knapsack and carefully prepared to knit. The stockings were meant to be for Derek, and now everything was changed and he wasn't sure that Derek would even accept them.

She let out a deep breath before she continued, "I have reasons to be so fearful," she said, "although I hate it in myself."

"I think that Peter would protect you if he knew what he had to protect you from," Stiles told her calmly, with his eyes on the stitch in front of him, half wondering when it had gotten so twisted. He would have to knit the next round in the back if he was to fix it, which might work, but he might be better off ripping the work back but then he would have to put the stitches back up on the needle which wasn't something that he was strong at.

"Did Peter protect you?" she turned her head to look at him, she had eschewed her coif and he could see loose wisps of bronze colored hair.

"He did his best, my father is not a man easily swayed and I had made such a mess of things," Stiles sighed, he would have to rip back the row, there was at least one stitch missing. He had worked the mistake over and over and he would have to rip out an inch of work or more. There was barely two inches of stocking, he might be better frogging the entire stocking.

"I shall make a trade," she said, turning the tablets in her weaving with a surety born of practice and an abandon that suggested that if she made a mistake it was staying in regardless and she would dare anyone to tell her that the pattern was wrong. "Your story for mine."

Stiles pulled the needles from the knitting, it would have to be frogged, the worst part was making the decision. "And I shall go first?" he asked, she just looked at him as if praising him for realizing it and the scar on her neck, uncovered as it was, looked very angry. he wondered, not how she had gotten it, but if Peter knew. It looked like the sort of thing that Peter would be angry about, not that she was scarred but that someone had done that to her.

As he pulled on the yarn, two angry yanks and then winding it back on the ball he told her everything, all of the things he had kept from Peter and his father, even those things he hadn't told Noah, he told her all of it, laid himself bare to another omega in the knowledge that she would understand in ways that they could not.

He told her what happened between Carlisle and Peter finding him in the woods. He told her about the dark nights where he was too lost to even consider going home. He told her all of the dark things. He told her how he was hungry and how he had eaten mushrooms that made him sick and lose days, waking up with Harli licking his face and whining. He told her about how he was scared and how if not for Harli he might have opened his veins in that wood, and how close he had come to death. All things he suspected Peter knew but Stiles had not put into words. He told her what happened with Derek and how he had tried to seduce him thinking that he was a beta and how Stiles had had to reject him. He told her about those nights in the apothecary when he considered how he would be unmarried and untouched his entire life, how he would never have children and how easy it would be to take those poisons that surrounded him but how he shoved those voices down.

He told her everything, every last awful thought, and dream that he had had, he told her. He told her about his father and how he had crept out at night and part of him wanted his father to punish him. He told her about his mother, dead these long years, and he told her about Matilda. He told her about Harli and he talked until there was nothing left, and then she unhooked her weaving from her belt, carefully putting it on the chair and she knelt on the floor in front of him and reached up with her soft white hands, so much smaller than his own, and wiped away his tears, muttering in her own language, not the French that they shared, and pulled him down into an embrace. She held him there as he sobbed into her headscarf, head tucked into her neck as Paige went to fetch something, and Harli butted her head between them to reassure him that she was there and she loved him and he wasn't to be sad.

When Paige came back, with a small cask of what looked like  _uskebeaghe_ which she put into small cups and brought over to them. It smelled sharply of alcohol but Stiles drank it down quickly, letting it burn his throat. She drank her own as quickly, raising her eyebrows at Lydia when she paused, then swallowed it down in a single swallow.

 

She took her seat back but before she started she reached up and pulled free her veil and the band holding it in place- underneath it her hair was no longer than Stiles'. She took a second cup of spirit before she spoke. "My father was, is, a powerful man. He's the foremost wool trader in Burgundy, almost as rich as the Duke himself, he has a place at court but no title." She said those things without intonation, it was a simple statement of fact, no more remarkable than the weather. "It was advised when I was a child that I would be better served completing my education in a priory, it was, is, a common practice, it's cheaper than a governess after all. Would that were my horror," she said with a sigh.

"The Prioress was French, from a fine family and her position had been purchased for her, she cared more for hunting than God, but that," she waved her hand, "she didn't care for her duties, we omega, and there were five of us then, were cared for as our parents paid for, educated by the older sisters, taught those things that they thought that we would need to make good mari. We were expected to keep our building spotlessly clean, even the kitchens where our food was prepared, so we did. We were taught to cook our own meals and apart from our lessons we lived amongst ourselves and we were content." She paused.

"A sickness hit the abbey, at first they believed it was the plague, almost all of the sisters fell sick with flux, and every hand was pulled in to help manage it. A doctor from Salerno came, he served the Duke, and he believed it was the Abbey kitchens that caused the illness and every healthy hand was put in place to clean it, the sisters lived mainly on meat that the Prioress caught, and although the Omega quarters were kept as clean as they could the sisters' were not. We must have spent a week scrubbing those kitchens and sluicing the floor of the infirmary. Everyone fell ill, except me."

She paused, considering her words before she continued. "I was engaged to be married, it had been arranged when I was at my mother's breast, I was to marry the young son of the Duke," she was rubbing her thumb over her palm and staring at her hands as she spoke. "I had never met him but I had seen him, and he was young and handsome and charming, he had a smile for every omega in the duchy and he was to be mine. I did not realize that that might cause rancor but a girl new come to the priory after the sickness despised me. I had done her no wrong but she wanted to marry the prince and I was to and that was reason enough for her."

Paige refilled her cup and Lydia drank it down. "So, she told her mother in a letter, a mother I now know was complicit, that I was a witch and she had seen me craft poppets that I might make the sisters take ill when they offended me, and that I was the cause of the illness, why else would I be the only one not to sicken. I did have loose bowels," she protested, "but I was not sick, merely bound to a bucket for a day, it was nothing that fruit cordial and salt could not clear." She wanted to make that clear.

"After she said that she had hoped only to break my engagement, that she was jealous, but word of my supposed sorcery reached the ears of a church official, after all several of the sisters had died and he had such hate. He came and said that the inquisition would prove my innocence or guilt. He took me to a church court and stripped me bare, despite my father's influence and argument, and there in front of half of the alphas of the church in Burgundy he searched me for a witch mark. He pricked me all over with a pin until he found a place that I would not feel, and when I cried out each time he mocked pricking me and then claimed that he had found my witchmark."

She went silent. "Having found my guilt, or so he said, for I do think he would have found any evidence, he was sure that I was to be burned before he arrived at the priory," her tone was even but Stiles could see how her hands shook. "He had me bound, ropes tight enough that my hands went numb and I could barely breathe," she touched the mark around her neck, "and said that witches were not solitary creatures, where there was one there would be more."  

There was another pause. "All of the omega at the priory were found guilty, even the one who had condemned me. He cut away our hair, that we used to make poppets, he said. He burned a witchmark onto our skin so everyone would know us for what we were," her hands were shaking as she reached up to her neck and unfastened the buttons of her gown, revealing a scarred cross seared into her skin. "He kept us naked for weeks until word reached the Duke and he was furious, all omega belong to the crown, don't you know, not the church. That the church was paid to educate us and he demanded that we be brought to the court, and that if we were found to be innocent that he would be banned and the church would be forced to pay recompense for damage to the court's property."

"He maintained that we were witches," she said, "he presented his evidence and one by one the Duke proved him a fraud. The duke is a man of natural philosophy, he has an alchemist and that man argued Valack, the witch-hunter down, he would devise a test, he said, that not even the church would refuse. With Valack stood over him he created a suspension of mountain ash berries in vinegar, mixed with the ground fingerbones of a saint and ginger powder. If I was a witch, he said, my body would reject the potion there and then, it would burn going down and it would come back, all over the cobblestones, and if that was the case then I was surely a witch and the church could have their hanging."

She had been wringing out her hands when Harli came over and dropped her head into Lydia's lap. Harli did not care for anyone to be unhappy when she was present, and if Lydia's hands were free they could be better served rubbing Harli's head or better yet scratching behind her ears.

"Valack did everything he could to make sure that we would cast our accounts in front of the Duke, he broke our fingers and whipped us bloody, he poured castor oil down our throats with funnels that cut our throats on the inside, but we were brought in front of the Duke as Valack said these things were necessary to control a witch, especially the heavy ropes around our necks and wrists that bound us to a heavy iron weight that we had to carry. When he started there were eight of us, by that point three of us remained." She was rubbing at Harli's ears then, her thumbs working into the skin in a pattern.

"We were covered in sores and lice, and he dragged us into that courtyard, and it was raining, what beauty we had had was long gone, our hair cut to the scalp and if scalp went with it whatever. We were witches, what kindness did we deserve. It was raining so hard and the water was cold, even though it was late summer. The sun burned our eyes it had been so long since we had seen it." Harli's whine gave her a pause but it was a happy rumble that she made when she was enjoying having her ears rubbed. "I held that potion down by sheer will," she said, "it was like drinking fire but I kept it in, with my belly full and swollen with salt water I held it in, I could feel it surge but I pushed it back down. I know now the ginger was to aid us, for the alchemist, Geier, offered us what kindness he had. I wonder now if adding nightshade instead of ginger would have been kinder."

She stopped and her hands stopped as well causing Harli to push her head forward, not yet having enough of her scratching. "Those of us who stood in the courtyard survived it and Valack was forced to pay the Duke reparations as if money could make up for what he had done; what he had enjoyed doing. When we were taken away he was told to present us as we should be, so he took one last opportunity to hurt us, he had us whipped one last time, this time with brambles, then bathed in salt, before he had us put on fine gowns so that they would stick fast to the wounds, to remind us of how our Lord suffered. He would tell the Duke that we were mistaken, that had done those things in the mistaken belief that we were witches. I was exonerated, but my engagement was gone. The Duke couldn't marry his son to an omega accused of witchcraft, surely my father understood.

"I spent this spring and summer in convalescence, healing slowly, my arm had to be rebroken so it could be set straight, and six fingers." She spread them out on Harli's skull, "and when my father started trading with the Hales he saw an opportunity, the Hales were fierce, their reputation was that they would protect their own to the cost of burning the world and my father thought that they might protect me, he almost beggared himself in a deal that I be protected in marriage." 

She looked across at Stiles, "Valack said he would come back for me, that he would have his hanging, and I believe him," she licked her lips as if remembering how they had been chapped, "I am scarred, both inside and out, I might never have children because of what he did to me," do you still think Peter will protect me?" It was an honest question. "I thought it was him when I saw the men, I thought I would have to back into the dark."

Stiles took another cup of the  _uskebeaghe_  before he answered her. "Yes,"he said, "even if you never have children or can never welcome him into your bed," he could see how surprised she was, "Peter will protect you because you're a Hale now and if you tell him what you tell me he will hunt down Valack and make him suffer every indignity and pain you did."  There was no doubt as he said it, "Nothing matters more to Peter than the clan, and those who hurt his clan might burn and consider themselves lucky for doing it. You are Clan, Lydia, we both are, that doesn't mean he won't be angry, but he will be more angry about what we didn't tell him, and how we didn't trust him enough to tell him and for him to protect us."

"And that my father chose him and used him to protect me, won't that anger him?"

"Peter?" Stiles considered it, "I think he'd be flattered that your father heard him to be so fierce," he looked across at her, "do you want me to tell him? Or do you want to wait until you can tell him yourself? You do have to tell him." Lydia held out her cup for more  _uskebeaghe_ instead of answering him.


	26. Chapter 26

Stiles was a little drunk when he left Lydia's chambers, assuring her that he would fix things, and she was drunk enough to agree. He steadied himself on the wall and burst out laughing when he saw Samwise guarding the door, but just listed on before he stopped, "Samwise," he asked, resting his forehead against the wall because it was cold, "I like your name, did I tell you that?"

"Yes," Samwise said, "a few times, usually when you're in your cups, you are aware that it's barely None," Samwise might have been frowning but Stiles couldn't tell under all his facial hair which he wanted to touch. "You might need a lie-down, lad, let your head settle."

"Nonsense," Stiles said firmly, "m'not drunk," he was sure he had to protest that and make it clear, "I only had," he paused mentally counting the cups, "four," he said holding out six fingers. "But I have to see Peter, I have to tell Peter."

"We can make a deal," Samwise offered, "you can go and have a wee lie down and I'll tell Peter that you want to see him, so he can talk to you when you're not three sheets to the wind."

"'m a little drunk," Stiles whispered it like it was a secret completely unaware of how loud he was being. "But I have to tell Peter."

"And what do you have to tell Peter?" As if summoned by the use of his name Peter was there and Stiles couldn't help but touch his face because he didn't have a great big beard like Samwise. "If it's that you are very drunk I have discovered that for myself." He grabbed Stiles' hands and pulled them away from his face, "and I think Samwise might be right, you need a lie-down, sleep off that drunk."

"No," Stiles protested, "'s-about Lydia," he said, "Lydia said I had to tell you because she couldn't."

"And what has Lydia to tell me?" Samwise had started walking guiding Stiles to the bedroom that was to be his that he might take to his bed and get rid of at least some of his drunk. Peter accompanied them but it was clear that he was busy and his jerkin looked more disheveled than usual, he looked as if he had been running up and down the stairs of the castle since he had brought Stiles back from the camp outside, and it was possible he was.

"Lydia's not a witch," he said it firmly and with such pride that Peter burst out laughing.

"I know that," Peter said, "and I wouldn't care if she was."

"She's scared you'll think she's a witch," Stiles continued, "she says it funny, she says  _heks_ , she's not a witch, she's a 'mega, like me." If Samwise did not know it was hard to tell if his expression changed under his thick facial hair, "but she has short hair like me, and they did things, because she's a  _heks_ , and she's scared they'll come back."

"Is she now?" Peter growled it out, and Stiles was too drunk to understand the malice in the tone, or even wonder if it was aimed at him. 

"Uhuh," Stiles agreed, "I told her, I did, I told her, I said, Lydia," he continued the next bit in French, "I tried to tell her that you were fierce and you tried to save me from my father and he's scary and that you had a reputation and that she was Clan and that you protected Clan at all costs and it wouldn't matter if this witch hunter came to hurt her you'd hurt him and she shouldn't be scared, and she certainly shouldn't be scared of you, and I asked if she could play Farkle because I know you like to play Farkle and she can't so I tried to teach her and Paige too, and there was wine and that drink with the funny name I can't say and cheese, but there wasn't enough cheese because Paige said Rachel wouldn't let her take any more." He continued even as Samwise put his arm around his waist to steer him, "and we lost one of the dice but I left Harli with her because Harli was asleep and Lydia went to sleep too, and they were asleep and I said I would find Peter and I would tell him, and I have, haven't i?" 

Samwise opened the door to his new room and steered Stiles with his whole body to the bed so that he had no real choice but to sit on the bed, and Samwise pushed him back, and Stiles just sort of fell back, "Peter," he said sagely, "the room's a bit swirly. Tell Samwise to hold it still for me."

"That's because you're drunk," Peter told him, "but do you want to tell me more about Lydia," Peter waved off Samwise and started to help Stiles with his boots.

"Oh," Stiles agreed, "I've never really been drunk before, Matilda wouldn't let me, and now I'm married and I," his entire face split with a yawn, "I like Lydia, she's funny," he seemed to realise who he was talking to, "you're funny too, Peter," that was clearly to reassure Peter that he liked him too which made perfect sense when he was drunk. He might have changed his opinion later. "I like Derek too, you should tell him that but is there any more cheese?"

"No," with his boots removed Peter swung Stiles' legs up on the bed, "there's no more cheese, but you were telling me about Lydia."

Stiles smacked his lips together a few times, "Lydia's scared, I told her, you're terrifying but you're clan, and she's clan and clan doesn't need to be scared of you." Stiles' eyes were closed now and he had rolled on his side away from Peter, "told her," he managed between yawns, "not a mouse sneezes in Faoilleach but that you're there to blow its nose."

That was the last of the useful information Peter was to gather because the boy was asleep by the time he finished the sentence. Peter shook his head and covered the boy, leaving him to sleep. His evening would be long and awful, but now Peter had some clues as to what had happened to Lydia and he, assuming, correctly it would turn out, that she was as drunk as Stiles, had ideas of how to make her feel safe in her new home. No wonder, he thought, why she had never left her rooms. He had thought she was afraid of him. He would make her feel safe.

\---

When Stiles awoke, feeling like he was sweating vinegar, with his face on Harli's sheepskin mat and his ass hanging off the bed Derek had taken the chair in the room and was watching him. He was wearing his kilt and pourpoint jacket, and his hair was slicked back from his face, his beard neatly trimmed. and when Stiles saw him his attempts to lift himself up with both hands, smacking his lips to try and moisten his mouth, failed and he landed back on the mat with his face to break his fall. 

Derek, who had been trying to look stern could not help himself from laughing.

It gave Stiles a moment to scrabble to a sitting position, looking around he saw that Harli was still with Lydia as he scrubbed his hand through his hair and tried to avoid looking at Derek, who had his leg stretched out and had removed his brace, with his kilt pooled around his spread leg and his stockings only reaching to his knee it was possible to see the twisted knot of the scar on his thigh. "You shall be the death of me," Derek said and it was fond. It was so fond that Stiles felt a part of himself inside break.

"I lied to you," he said, "I didn't want to, I had to, I,"

"Stiles," Derek said firmly, "It is well."

"No," Stiles cut him off, "it's not, I lied to you, and you ruined me because you didn't know and I was scared my father would hurt you so I lied to him and now everything is a mess."

"I know," Derek said, "your father knew you had lied too, just as his reputation has spread so far north so has mine, the story of the laird who does not leave his tower, who would not touch an omega if they were spread out for them like butter on bread is known. He knew as soon as you said it that it was untrue but he offered us the chance for it to be true; if we treated you as you should be treated." He paused, "Peter argued that you should be treated as you wished to be treated, not necessarily as a prince and a trinket to be adored but as a person to be loved."

Stiles pulled his knees up to his chest. His father was always observant. 

"Your father is as terrifying as his reputation suggests, when he looked at me I felt like I was run through."

Derek looked down at the floor then, "his companion, Sir Noah Stilinski, was there to provide counsel, but Stiles, Mischief, Mihangel," he used all the names that Stiles had answered to, "do you want to be here, or are you here because you think if you are your father will not destroy us?"

Stiles chewed on his lip before he answered. "I don't want him to destroy you, but I'm happy here, I like it here, I feel," he paused, "useful."

"Only useful?" Derek asked, and there was growl in his voice that had not been there before.

"No," Stiles admitted finally, "not only useful, but I like being useful, it's," he smiled to himself as if mulling over a great and wondrous secrete, "new, I'm an omega, Derek, and the only legitimate son of the terror of the lower countries, do you think I've ever been allowed to be useful, to get my hands dirty, or to help make bread, or to rub ointment into someone's leg," Derek ran his hand over his thigh, "I like it," Stiles licked his lips, "it's," he paused, "it makes me feel strong."

"Only strong?" Derek leaned forward on his chair, "all the alphas in the clan and you chose me,"

"I wanted to," Stiles admitted, leaning in towards Derek at the end of the bed, "I wanted to be married to you,"

"Did you now?" Derek stood up and using the post of the bed as a crutch moved close enough to Stiles that they were almost touching, sitting on the coverlet of what was now Stiles' bedchamber as Derek's mari. 

He leaned in, that they were just a thought apart and Derek's hands were on either side of Stiles' hips, the heat of him pushing him back into the bed. "Don't," Stiles barked suddenly, putting his hand between them, against his mouth. Derek reeled back like he had been splashed with hot water. "I was drinking," Stiles continued, "my breath is worse than Harli's, I need to get some marigold tea and some parsley and then some peppermint, I want to, but," he cupped his hand so he could smell his own breath and recoiled, "I need to clean my teeth," he said, "it smells like I was eating the middens." 

Derek pulled back the hand and laid a kiss on the palm, careful of the grazes there. "It's a promise, Mihangel."

"Stiles," he corrected, "I like being your Stiles, it's like I'm all these different people to different people, I'm Mihangel to my father and brothers and Mischief to Sir Noah and my mother, God rest her, and my sisters, and Vidame to people who want to impress my father by using me but to you and to the clan I'm Stiles, and Stiles is someone those people can't be and Stiles can do things that they can't, and Stiles can kiss you when he's brushed his teeth and Mihangel would get his mouth washed out with soap for even suggesting it, which would improve my breath, and Mischief would get teased and set to some labour that's suitable for omegas to learn so they can manage a household and."

Derek pressed his finger to his lips, "we can discuss it, assuming you don't want to dissolve this marriage."

"If my breath did not stink like a sewer in midsummer I'd kiss you," Stiles said, "but I don't want to kill you before the wedding feast."

"Rachel would kill you, she's been up all day roasting a full cow," Derek said, with a laugh.

"With her knees," Stiles protested, "the poor kitchen girls, she'll be taking that out on them, I hope she has a herb bath planned for this evening, she works too hard, and with her knees."

"Stiles," Derek said with a smile he couldn't quite control, "go clean your teeth."


	27. Chapter 27

Stiles was on his way from the apothecary under the chapel to Lydia's room with a large bottle of marigold decoction when he was distracted from his path by an oncoming fist. It spun him hard enough that he slipped on the slushy snow in the corridor and fell, but on his way back up he grabbed the glass bottle of the decoction, grabbed it in his hand and brought his hand, complete with bottle, into the side of the head of the person who attacked him. After that, it was hard to define who had struck who until Arbroath came flying down the steps to the courtyard and separated them, with one fighter in each massive hand. 

Arbroath had hands like carved wood and no amount of wriggling, kicking or protesting saw either of them freed from the hand that was clamped around the back of their necks as he marched them up the stairs and into the main room where Peter was leading Deucalion and Sir Noah. "Is there something I should know?" Peter asked.

"Fighting," Arbroath said, "the pair of them, don't know what about, figured it was your problem." Arbroath might have accepted that they were Peter's responsibility but he did not relax the hand on the back of their necks at all. 

This was the first opportunity Stiles had to see his opponent, who was a boy younger than him by perhaps two years, with thick Hale brows and bright blue eyes like Peter's own, he was short and stocky, with a body built up by use, perhaps in the smithy, for he wore a thick leather apron.

Peter let out a sigh and muttered something under his breath. "You don't have a guard for one day," he said to Stiles then looked at both of them, "now who started it?" he asked with a put-upon sigh.

"He did," they both said at the same time. This caused another round of attempting to fight but Arbroath just spread his hands a little further apart so they couldn't reach him.

"He hit me, I was bringing Lydia medicine and he came out of nowhere and knocked me down," Stiles shouted, trying to pull free of Arbroath's hands. Noah stepped forward to inspect the graze on Stiles' cheek and the bruising that would soon develop on his face.

"Liam," Peter said with the patience and manner of a long-suffering saint, "is this true?"

"He got my mama cast out," Liam spat out.

"That's not true, I don't know you and I don't know your mama," Stiles said at the same time as Peter said that that was not what he was asked. "I don't like to repeat myself, Liam, did you hit him first?" 

Liam lowered his eyes to the floor and all of the fight seemed to drain out of him. "I did," he muttered, then he found his voice, "he was going to get my mama sent away, and."

"Well, this seems straightforward," Deucalion said bluntly, "take the boy out and hang him," everyone looked at him surprised, "isn't that the law for striking an omega, nevermind one's sovereign lord."

Just as the fight had the color drained from the boy, Liam's face, he looked across to Peter, his tone pleading now. "He hurt my mama and got her sent out and he stopped me working for Mistress McCall as a doctor, my mama went to ask her and she said no she had him and then he got my mama sent away."

"I don't know your mama." Stiles barked. "I was minding my own damn business."

"One moment, Duke," Noah said stepping forward, "something is very amiss here," Noah might have been angry that someone had laid fists to Stiles but the stories just weren't adding up and if the boy was going to hang he wanted to know everything going on. "You boy, Liam?" he looked at Liam, "who is your Mother? Speak honestly and you might escape the gallows that my fellow seems so keen on seeing you dangle from for striking his son, and right now only your youth is preventing me from fetching the rope."

"Margaret, she's working as a maid for Mistress Blake after he got her fired from the kitchens." Liam's words fell over each other as he tried to explain everything caught between defiance, anger, and fear.

"I am the one who released her from the kitchens," Peter said, "because she was not doing the job for which she was being paid, does that mean you get to punch me, Liam?" Liam shook his head as much as he could with Arbroath holding his neck as he was. "And did you approach Mistress McCall about working for her?"

Liam ducked his head and answered that he had not, because Mistress Blake had done so on his behalf. Deucalion made a noise of acknowledgment as if something made sense.

 "Mistress McCall needs all the help she can get," Stiles said, "she'd love to have you help, you can deal with the alphas who won't let her treat them because she's a woman, and help Heather with the heavy things, and Mistress Blake won't go to Mistress McCall, she called her a witch and Mistress McCall said she could die then if she was to be so to her physician, I had to treat her megrims."

"Who told you that your mother was going to be cast out, Liam?" Peter asked.

Liam's answer of Mistress Blake surprised no one but Liam reacted as if he was finally seeing something. 

"I think that answers that, don't you, Duke?" Noah asked.

"One last thing, boy," Deucalion said, "Stiles here, what do you know of him, do you know why you'll hang?"

Liam looked at Peter again as if Peter would protect him but Peter made it clear that whatever it was that Liam answered was all that would save him from the noose. Peter had done what he could.

"Father, he doesn't know," Stiles protested, "it's just boys roughhousing, you wouldn't react like this for Camden or Jordan."

"You are not Camden or Jordan," Deucalion stated, "you are not an alpha looking to pick fights with the furniture just to prove their seniority."

"Nor am I Sydney to be cossetted and protected," Stiles continued. "Father, he's a child."

"I didn't know," Liam said although it wasn't clear that he knew what it was that he didn't know.

"He laid hands on you," Deucalion said bluntly.

"At Mistress Blake's machination, she knew, we know she knew, she wrote to you telling you of my sanctuary here," Stiles wasn't sure why he was defending the boy who until he had struck him Stiles had never even encountered, "she knew, Father, he didn't, he's just the smithy boy, as far as he knows I'm some doctor from the south, he doesn't know."

"I didn't know he was your son, mister, I didn't."

Noah sighed and reached out and tucked Stiles hair behind his ear revealing the low points and Liam wailed, "I didn't know, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't if I'd known."

"You shouldn't have anyway," Peter snapped, !your temper has gotten you in trouble before, Liam," he let out a deep breath, "obviously the boy can't go unpunished," Deucalion muttered assent, "but hanging is a permanent solution to the wrong problem. Liam, go to Rachel and tell her that I've sent you for punishment until we decide what to do with him." Arbroath let Liam drop and his legs seemed to fail him as he scrabbled to his feet and the door. "This is an extension, Liam, not a reprieve."

Deucalion let him go, "and you wonder why I insist that you be treated as is your due? That boy nearly hung because he did not know the truth of you."

Stiles clenched his fists and turned to Peter, "what's the usual punishment for alphas fighting?" he asked.

"Ten lashes with a switch for both parties an extra ten for the person who started it for the first offense. This is not Liam's first offense." A switch was a long thin branch that whipped through the air and it bruised more than sliced like a flogger would.

"One hundred lashes," Deucalion offered.

"Twenty-five," Stiles countered, "and I take my ten for fighting."

"No!" all three alphas said firmly before Peter offered fifty. Noah sighed, "thirty-five and a month in the kitchens as pot-boy," he dared the two of them to argue with him, "and if he reoffends add another ten lashes and another month in the kitchens."

"If he lays hands on my son again I'll see him swing," Deucalion said firmly.

"He knows now, father, he won't do it again, but Mistress Blake set this up, surely I'm not the only one who can see that," he looked up at Arbroath who hadn't let him go yet, "can you let me go now?" Arbroath looked at Peter before he did. 

"We can hang her," Arbroath suggested, "ain't no one going to miss that bitch."

Peter made a sucking sound between his teeth as if considering it.

Stiles rolled his eyes, "Father, she wrote to you in the hopes of being accepted into your court, but you didn't respond, am I right?" Deucalion agreed that that was true.

"Arbroath has the right of it," Peter said, "she's a bitch, she came here just after the boys left for the holy land telling my sister that she was pregnant and Tom was the father, she lost the baby soon after and we couldn't get rid of her. If you want to take her I'll help you pack her things."

"After setting up that boy so Stiles could get a hiding?" Noah asked.

"She seems to think that Derek should marry her because she was engaged to Thomas."

"Bullshit," Peter snarled, "Thomas couldn't get engaged without Talia's blessing and Talia sure as hell didn't give it, it was only kindness to Thomas' ghost that we even put up with her, Derek would rather marry a midden hag,"

"Does she know that Derek and I are married?" Stiles asked, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Does she know tonight's wedding feast is for us and not Lydia and you?" 

Peter realized what Stiles was suggesting, "you are a wicked imp," he said through a grin, "Deucalion, what would happen to such a vicious harpy in your court?"

Deucalion shrugged, but it was a gesture that exuded power. "Before Claudia died she might have enjoyed my favor before being passed down to one of my commanders, but I haven't taken a mistress since she died." He looked across at Noah, as if checking something in his gaze before he continued, "she would be given to one of my vassals, a marriage would be arranged. Do you have something in mind?"

Stiles considered it for a moment before he answered, "surely you have someone who offers her a life of hard work and toil, perhaps a miller who needs a wife, or the man who manages the nightsoil."

Peter's grin matched Stiles' own, "one who does not attend court but still holds influence by virtue of being needed, but whose influence is gained by effort and not martial might, if you do not, Deucalion, I can think of one or two under the benison of the Hale clan." He turned to Stiles, "go on back up to Lydia, you said you were bringing her medicine," it was a clear dismissal and Stiles gratefully accepted it as such, going not back to Lydia's chambers but instead the apothecary that he could bottle more of the decoction for her.

\---

  
After leaving the bottle of marigold decoction for Lydia, with instructions how to make the syrup into tea Stiles returned to his new tower room where Derek was still waiting for him. Harli had remained with Lydia, after raising her head to make sure that all was well and that she didn't have to move, so Stiles was not worried about her. Harli was capable of making her will known and Lydia had announced her intent to join the feast that Rachel was preparing, which was Stiles' wedding feast although few knew that; They assumed the feast was for Lord Deucalion outside the gates.

Derek remained in his chair although he was rubbing at his thigh and dropped his kilt to cover the muscle when Stiles came back in. Stiles was given the opportunity to see all of Derek's emotions cross his face, how he went from controlling his pain to hope to rage in the blink of an eye. Stiles was glad that Derek kept his beard well trimmed for if his hair as wild and as long as any of the Sams he wouldn't have been able to see the changes. "Who?" He growled, trying to get up from the chair. 

Stiles rushed across to him, although it was only a matter of a few steps. Stiles let him touch his face, turn him to better see the graze. "Oh, the usual fisticuffs," he said shrugging it off, "Peter and my father took care of it, did you know Arbroath can lift a person just by their neck."

"Stiles," Derek managed to sound disappointed which was the worst thing. 

"Some kid called Liam, had me confused for someone else," Derek said, "it's been taken care of, Arbroath grabbed the pair of us and took us to Peter, and really, you should see him, his eye's all swollen and his lip busted, I'm just a little..." he made a gesture that covered his face, "and most of it I got when I fell down, and then I had to talk Father down because he wanted to hang him, although I'm sure he wouldn't have, would he?" Derek didn't say anything, he believed at least that Deucalion would. "Oh god, he would have, wouldn't he? he would have hung him." 

It suddenly became very difficult for Stiles to breathe, it was too much, he had held it back this long but now the room was spinning, so much different to when he had been drunk and it was only the grip that Derek had on his forearm that stopped him flying away, "oh god, he would have, he would have hung a kid for nothing and I'm to have my wedding feast and I can't breathe," he struggled at his collar, "and you're clearly on something for your melancholia, St Johns Wort? Valerian? and Lydia was hurt by witch hunters and I can't do anything about it and my father is here with Sir Noah and Peter and Jennifer sent him to be hung even though she had to know and," even having an attack of anxiety that rid him of breath Stiles talked.

Derek cupped Stiles face in his hands, "breathe with me," he said and tried to guide his breathing by showing him his own.

It took long moments, Stiles on his knees before Derek's stool, with Derek cupping his face and talking calmly and evenly for Stiles to regain control, and it left him worn out and exhausted, as if he had been slopped in a bucket and then wrung out between strong hands. He finally took the opportunity to do what he wanted since he had seen Derek that first time, looking so sad and lonely, as he turned and walked away. He wrapped his arms around him and buried his face into his chest.


	28. Chapter 28

Stiles' face was rosy when he dressed in finer clothes than those he had worn before in preparation for what would be his wedding feast. His lips were a little swollen and he had to apply violet cream to his cheeks where they had been a little reddened by Derek's beard. When Mother Demdike came in to help him dress she tutted at him like she was not surprised or disappointed but that she should have expected it as she pulled out nightingale powder and oil for his hair and tried to make him, in her words, into a respectable omega prince, which was obviously, again in her words, the sort of task that was reserved for saints. Or certainly, more patience than she had.

She managed to rush Derek out, not even letting him steal one last kiss, as she rolled her eyes and threatened to get the broom, Stiles had no idea what she intended to do with that broom but Derek hobbled out, looking back over his shoulder as he leaned over his cane.

"Don't even, young man," Mother Demdike said, "I was told you told Miss Melissa that you didn't want babies because you couldn't believe something that big could come out of a hole that small because you were well on your way there."

Stiles was so happy he didn't care, even if he did have to have violet cream smeared on his face, including the bits that were grazed from Liam's fists and not just reddened from Derek's scruff and it stung. He just grinned at her.

He put on the robe that she laid out over the clean white shirt and velvet pants. He still had to put on the same deerskin boots that he had arrived at Faoilleach in. Derek had told him, between kisses, that he had given Stiles the bracelet because he felt it would look beautiful on him, and had no ulterior motive, but he liked that it had become a promise between them. Stiles had sat on the bed, Derek on the stool in front of him, and told him about the story of Brisangamen, the necklace of Rus amber that Odin had given to Freya on their wedding day and how he had thought it was the same, and even so it was far to fine to give to a physick's assistant and he wouldn't be giving any more of them out, especially to Liam if he was going to help Mistress McCall.

Derek had just smiled and kissed him again. "I think I like you on whatever it is that Mistress McCall has given you," Stiles said between kisses, Derek ducked the question and just ducked back in for more kisses, Stiles arms around his neck.

And now Stiles was going to go down to a wedding feast, his wedding feast, and he would sit next to Derek at the high table and everyone would be celebrating his wedding, when he had never had one, Derek had agreed with Stiles' father that they were married and so there was no ceremony, but there would be the feast so everyone knew, because Stiles' father believed he deserved one.

And now he was panicking over it. He didn't have Derek's kisses to distract him.

Rachel had been cooking all day, slaving over roast suckling pig and a whole roast oxen, she had cooked vegetables in the meat and had all the kitchen girls working hard to please her, and with her knees, and Stiles couldn't just stay in his room because she had gone to all that work and everyone was waiting and he was wearing velvet and Mother Demdike had styled his hair and he was wearing a diadem, and Lydia was going to go, she was going to leave her room and Stiles could do this.

When he opened the door Noah was there, and he offered him his arm, "you're not scared are you?"

"Nope, not me, not at all, I can't imagine why I would be scared, I mean scared isn't really appropriate because it's not like there's monsters down there and I like Derek, I really like him, and I'm happy, I am, it's just, it's a lot."

Noah reached across to put his hand on Stiles' where it sat on his arm, "it's going to be fine, Mischief, your mother was nervous on her wedding day," he said, "she would be so proud of you."

"I miss her, Tata," Stiles said in a small voice. "I wish she was here."

"Me too, Mischief," Noah said, "and I can assure you that your father does too."

\---

When Stiles walked in on Noah's arm only a few people turned to notice, even when he walked up the aisle made by the tables on either side of the hall no one turned away from their meals. "They're clansmen," Noah whispered, "and I'm told your head cook is exceptional, she might be upset if they didn't give their full attention to her cooking," 

"And with her knees," Stiles muttered with a smile, for he had found himself doing it too. Rachel was plagued by pain in her knees so everyone qualified everything she did or did not do, with "and with her knees." Noah recognized that it was a joke even if it was not one that he was part of. "She's little and mean, Tata, she lets Peter think he runs the castle, but she does."

"Don't tell your father but it's the same in his castle," Noah said with a smile as they approached the main table, "alphas are easily led by their stomachs, they'll tell you it's their knots, but the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

"And up, I know, Tata," Stiles answered as he climbed the steps to the dais where the Hales sat, he brushed his hand over Lydia's shoulder as he walked past her to sit next to Derek, then his hand fell to Derek's thigh and the pleats of his kilt, which had been pressed in. Stiles was baffled by kilts as it seemed to be enough wool to drape a bed and it was a two man job to put it on. Derek looked exceptionally fine, wearing a shirt and with his kilt over his shoulder, fixed with a triskele brooch and he wore a circlet that matched Stiles' own. His hair and beard had been oiled, but by the smell of him, musk and verbena and oak, he hadn't been smothered in violet cream. Stiles couldn't help but notice how handsome he was. 

"Thank you, Noah, for guiding him," Derek said, his own hand squeezing Stiles' velvet covered arm in a reassurance.

"It was my pleasure, Lord Hale," Noah said with a bow of his head- if there were threats exchanged for looking after Stiles to a standard that Noah and his father set Stiles had not seen it.

Lydia sat on his other side, with Peter framing them, so the two alpha heads of the Hale clan framed their omega brides. "You look beautiful," Lydia muttered, "you should dress this well more often," she took a mouthful of what smelled like dandelion and burdock tea from a cup in front of her and smiled, "I have learned a new word in Scots," she said, "soon my husband and I shall be able to have an attempt at conversation."

Stiles peal of laughter turned a few heads but only because it was so loud. One of the kitchen serving girls came forward with a tray heaped high with food, there was a suckling pig sat on their table, with a winter apple stuffed into its mouth on a bed of parsnips baked with honey under the meat to absorb the dripping fat. Rachel had told Stiles that the trick to a good pease pudding was to boil the peas with a pork soup bone so he knew that it would be a little salty as he put it on his plate, ravenous like he hadn't eaten in months. There were fresh grouse stuffed with herbs, a tray of grayling drizzled in butter. Cauldrons of potage were passed about and everyone got a share. It took four of the Sams to carry out the entire roast oxen into the middle of the room, where it was met with much cheer. 

The head table might have a huge selection of meats but the clan had the roast ox and were delighted with it.

Between every bite Derek squeezed Stiles' hand and it took him an alarming amount of time that Derek was desperately uncomfortable and was relying on Stiles for comfort, so every time Derek squeezed his hand Stiles both repeated the gesture and smiled at him. Derek had grown up in the clan and yet their boisterous noise and easy cacophony seemed to scare him and he could not have said why. Stiles didn't ask, he just let Derek squeeze his hand and pick at his food.

They were well into the fish, which was excellent - Rachel really had excelled herself - and Harli was whining at the lack of things that were falling off the table, but most of those that did were from Peter, when Jennifer entered. She had taken care of her appearance so she looked more like she belonged in Deucalion's court than the dresses that she had worn before. She wore a long red velvet dress that dragged on the floor behind her, and her hair was loose down her back, and she wore a lovely necklace that Stiles had not seen before but was designed to bring attention to her breasts. She had been usurped from the main table, but her seat was near it, In her hands she held a small ivory box which she carried to the main table, "congratulations on your wedding," she said to Peter, "I know that there are disagreements between us but I would share in the celebrations, for your bride."

Peter said nothing but Stiles translated for Lydia, who he suspected understood more than she could say. She opened the box to reveal a small square of marchpane, pressed with a triskele on a bed of comfits. The smell of almonds was almost overwhelming. "Thank you," Lydia said in halting Scots. Then she let Stiles translate for her.

"Her ladyship is grateful for your gift, Mistress Blake, but she cannot accept it," for a moment a dark look crossed her face.

"If it is her figure that she fears for, a little indulgence is hardly."

Stiles cut her off, "I had not finished, Mistress Blake," he said and he tried to find that part of him that was cold and commanding, "Her ladyship cannot accept the gift for marchpane makes her unwell, and she would rather refuse the git and see it go to someone who would appreciate it than have your gift soured by illness. It would greatly upset her if word got around that your gift, kind as it is, made her sick."

Lydia said something and Stiles nodded, "her ladyship wishes that it would do her well to see it enjoyed, and that, perhaps, Mistress Blake, you could eat it."

There was that flash of disgust again, "It is a gift, the last of the marchpane brought with me from my family," she said, "the same marchpane that I gifted a piece of to Lady Talia, perhaps," she looked Stiles clear in the eyes, "you could eat it."

Stiles laughed again, "and go to my wedding bed sick to my stomach from eating too many sweets," he squeezed Derek's hand so that she knew who it was that Stiles had married and watched it cross her face. "And I owe you so much, you wrote to my father alerting him of my location which forced me to decide whether or not to accept dear Derek's proposal, my father's appearance simply sped up what was already happening, but being so close to the Hale family, you must have known it." 

Her smile was a hard brittle thing, and her eyes were like black beads, "but Mistress Blake, it is a shame to see the marchpane wasted, you must eat it for us, we can see someone enjoy your fine work. It is a terrible thing to have to refuse a gift, especially when we know just how much it cost you."

"I don't like marchpane," she hissed from between clenched teeth, "the hazard of being an almond seller's daughter."

Stiles nodded, "the gesture is appreciated, look, Father," Stiles called down the table, "Mistress Blake brought us a wedding gift, but it's marchpane and neither Lydia or I can appreciate it."

"Horrid stuff," Deucalion answered down the table, "a mouthful and I feel sick to my stomach with its richness. Perhaps you can use the box for something."

"Comfits too, father, it's such a thoughtful gift, but not for us."

"Comfits are even worse, you spend all evening picking fennel seeds from your teeth, what is the old joke," Noah said, "a moment in the mouth a lifetime in the teeth and aniseed breath is so unpleasant." 

Mistress Blake looked like she had been slapped, "are you leaving with my father?" Stiles asked, "I understand he has offered you a place in his court where you might find yourself a husband, he won't be as fine as my Derek, but I'm sure you could be happy there."

Mistress Blake turned on her heel, still holding the box of marchpane and left the hall.

"Dare I ask what that was about?" Derek asked, "I didn't want to intrude but I quite like marchpane."

"It was probably poisoned," Peter said, "your mother took very ill after receiving marchpane from Mistress Blake, she would have expected us to eat it, had she taken a bite then I would have accepted it, but she was very careful not to."

"Deucalion?" Derek asked, "did you know about this?"

"About what?" he asked, taking more of the roast pig, "I just can't stand marchpane."


	29. Chapter 29

It wasn't until Stiles was led by Derek, leaning heavily on his crutch, up the stairs to the tower room that housed Derek's rooms, the ones that adjoined the room that Stiles had been given, that it started to sink in that Derek and Stiles were married. Stiles had lied to his father about it but the two had hammered out an agreement and the wedding feast was for them and that now they would consummate the marriage, and Derek knew that Stiles was an omega and that Derek, if nothing else, desired him.

The bed that had always been in the room suddenly seemed to dominate it in a way that it had never before, and Harli, who had followed them, bounded past them, nearly knocking Stiles to the floor, and jumped up on it like it was always hers. She even had the audacity to turn around several times before deciding exactly where she was going to lay down, which she did with a noise of delight and the down mattress deflated under her with a heavy sigh. To Stiles' surprise, Derek burst out laughing as he watched the dog, slap her jaws a few time before taking the opportunity to sleep. She had had a fine dinner with bones from the high table given to her, and Peter slipping her things like an entire pheasant, deboned so she didn't choke, under the table.

"She always sleeps with me," Stiles said, scrubbing his hand over his head, his fingertips catching on the circlet he wore, pulling it up off his head and hanging it from his wrist before he went back to scratching through his hair. "I,"

Derek silenced him before he could continue, "there might not be room for the three of us, but we can make it work."

"I'll get her mat," Stiles said, seizing the opportunity to escape, if only for a moment to catch his thoughts. "We'll put it on the fire."

"Or I could do this?" Derek said and opened the door to Boyd's room, the room that would normally be occupied by Derek's body servant. "Boyd, could you take Harli out for a late walk?" he asked, Boyd looked exhausted and a little drunk when he came through the door, patting his leg for Harli to follow him and without a word from him Harli got off the bed, looking just as put-upon as Boyd did, followed him out of the door.

"I suppose I should have seen that coming," Stiles said, "she's abandoned me for Boyd, and was I mistaken or was he slipping her cheese under the table." 

"He wasn't the only one, Peter gave her a whole pheasant," Derek said, removing his own circlet before he took Stiles' and put them together into a wooden box lined in velvet.

"But pheasant doesn't make her farty, we should have asked Boyd to keep her all night, near an open window." Stiles walked over to the window, "I always liked this window, it's so pretty, I know that there is glass in the chapel above the apothecary's apartments, but I like this window, at the moment all you can see is sky and snow and the Kynsloch, but I imagine it's pretty in the spring."

"Stiles," Derek said, putting his hand on Stiles' shoulder, "are you avoiding me?"

"Not very successfully," Stiles admitted turning to Derek, "it's just, it's just a bit real, it was easy when there were things that needed to be done and I had to do this and do that and there were things that came after but now this is the thing that came after and it's." 

Derek tilted his face upwards so that they were face to face, with barely a thought's distance between them, "tell me to stop," he said softly, "and I'll stop,"

Stiles didn't tell him to stop, even when Derek pressed him against the cold hard glass and jerked up the robe he was wearing, the belt flung across the room by someone's clever hands, Stiles didn't know whose because it was happening and he was overwhelmed but he didn't care, he just wanted to touch, to have his hands on Derek's skin, and have Derek's skin against his skin and Derek's mouth trailing along his neck, and Stiles wanted him never to stop.

Stiles' sexual education tended towards the abstract when he was in his father's court, then the horrifically literal when working with Mistress McCall, because people tended not to have shame around their chirurgeon and sometimes Mistress McCall and Heather would trade horror stories, stories that leaned more on the horror than narrative. Mistress McCall had no shame in making sure that her apprentices were fully aware of the terrible things that could come as a consequence of sex, babies being the least of these. Then there were the stories, often told with laughter between her and Rachel or Mother Demdike of sexual exploration with things that should not be explored, and how on more than one occasion that she had to dip her hand in lard to remove items from holes that absolutely should not have items in, including, but not limited to, pulling a butter paddle from one man's ass. Stiles couldn't look him in the eye for days. Especially when Mistress McCall had said that he should have gotten Arbroath to carve a phallus for him, like hers.

That education suddenly meant nothing because Derek had his hands on him, and he wanted Derek to have his hands on him. He knew in the morning he would have to take bishop's lace to prevent a baby quickening, but he hadn't decided if that was what he wanted yet. What if it was what Derek wanted? What if Derek woke up tomorrow and having bedded him didn't want him any more, and he would be ruined and.

"You're thinking too much," Derek murmured into his mouth, then his hands were around the curve of Stiles' ass and lifted him, encouraging him to wrap his thighs around Derek's waist so Derek could, even with his leg, carry him the few steps to the bed where he placed him as carefully as he had the twin coronets in their box.

"I can't help it," Stiles murmured between kisses, "I'm a flitterwit, my mind is always thinking too much."

Derek was grazing his teeth over the curve of Stiles' chin, "you don't have to fight any more," he murmured, "I'm here," saying that he worked his hand into the fall of Stiles' pants and then it was much harder to think.

\---

Stiles was asleep, and aware that he had been roused out of the comfortable sleep he experienced in Derek's arms by Harli jumping up on the bed and settling on the blankets at the feet of it. Derek did not wake, he stirred, pulling his knees up under Stiles' thighs and tightening his arm around Stiles.

With the curtain pulled back from the glass window Stiles could see the full moon over the Kynsloch. It was the wolf moon, he thought, the one where the packs were at their hungriest when they were ruthless in choosing and bringing down their prey, and at the foot of the bed was Harli, smacking her jaws and burrowing into the blanket until it was the way she wanted it. Derek's arm was cold where it was exposed to the winter air, and for the first time since Theo had woken him to tell him the lies about his father's intent for him Stiles felt secure and warm and safe. He reached over his shoulder and pressed a sloppy kiss on Derek's shoulder where it was holding him firm. He chose this, and humming softly he let himself fall back to sleep, warm, secure, and safe.

They could talk about what came next the next day, they could talk about expectation and responsibility, or they could stay in bed having those conversations and others. Stiles had to tell Peter the name of the man who had hurt Lydia, he had to talk to Lydia about so many things because she understood in so many ways that no one else could. He had to see Mistress McCall about his duties for her now he was married, and married to the lord of the keep she served. He had to talk to Rachel about what was expected of him as the new Laird, and he didn't know where to start.

But for now he was in Derek's arms and Derek was happy and so warm, and Stiles didn't feel stifled by the arm pressing him down to the mattress even if Harli was draped over his feet and cutting off the feeling. He had to find some bishop's lace, which Mistress McCall would have, and talk to Derek about the possibility of babies, and whether or not that he would have to keep that secret because some lords believed that omegas were only for babies, and Stiles wasn't ready yet.

There was so much going on in his head he wanted things to be settled before he had a baby, but he did want them, just not yet. Would Derek understand that, or was Derek ready to return to his rooms to find Stiles stood over a baby's cradle? 

He was fretting again and knew it was just fretting and it didn't matter because as soon as he spoke to Derek then he would have his answers and then the fretting would be wasted when there were things that he could spend his perfectly good fretting worrying over.

He was wide awake then, so he climbed out from under Dereks' arm and pulled Derek's kilt up over his shoulders, although it left his thighs bare most of his body was covered, and he went to the window to look at the moon. Omega were said to feel a kinship with her, and the moon was said to be the Sun's omega bride, and maybe it was, but she saw everything, she overlooked them all, she managed their courses, which came and went with the fullness of her passing. He cupped his hand over his stomach under the kilt, then looked back at his huband, asleep on the bed, with Harli raising her head to watch him. "Want some cheese, girl?" Stiles asked, going to the tray of cold meats and cheese that had been left out for them.

Harli, with a sigh that suggested some terrible fate, climbed down from the bed and went over to put her head on Stiles' knee where he sat on Derek's chair, taking the morsel of cheese from his fingers. "It's all changed, girl," he said and dropped a kiss on her head.

Derek turned over in the bed with a heavy flop, his eyes slitting open, looking at Stiles sitting on his chair before the fire, "come back to bed," he slurred.

"In a minute," Stiles answered, "I'm just..."

"Happy, I hope," Derek said.

"I don't know yet," Stiles answered honestly, "it's so much and my mind is all over the place." Derek sat up on the bed and swung his legs down, rubbing his thigh, with his hand, "does your leg hurt?" He stood up, leaving the kilt behind on the chair and taking down the large pot of muscle rub that was on the mantle, "did we, did I hurt you?" He dropped to his knees on the mat before the bed, before Derek's thigh, and opened the jar scooping some of it onto his fingers to rub into the knot of scar tissue on the leg in front of him.

"Stiles," he leaned down and kissed Stiles on the forehead, "it's well," he said, "is it me? it can't be easy to be married to a cripple."

"I don't care about that," Stiles said, "I love you, not your leg," then he realized what he had said, "well I do love your leg because it's your leg not because I just love legs, and..."

Derek chuckled under his breath, "come back to bed, love," he put his hands on Stiles' shoulders, "we can do this, the rest we can work out tomorrow, after we've slept," Harli understood at least some of those words because she barrelled past Stiles and jumped up on the mattress, now mostly vacated, making herself comfortable. "And maybe get Harli a bed of her own."

Stiles stood up, and pressed his forehead against Derek's, "there's one thing I don't think can wait until the morning," he admitted, "I don't think I can have sex with Harli watching."

Derek went to call out for Boyd and then realised the two of them were naked, "we can get her a new bed," Derek said, his hands on Stiles' hips and their faces almost pressed together where Stiles stood and leaned over him, Stiles laughter filled the room as Derek continued, "in Boyd's room." Harli had the gall to look insulted before she flopped over on her side with her head on Derek's pillow, and living up to Stiles' promise, farted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be an epilogue, but I want my schedule to calm down a bit [ask me again after The Hunting Party is finished]


End file.
